Each Cell That Beats
by aragonite
Summary: It was a long, hard journey to convince the Time Lords he needed Jamie and Zoe back in his life. The Second Doctor soon learns of a sure-fire method of getting some bargaining power in the CIA: Take on a mission nobody wants to touch and hope he survives it. Season 6B, before THE FIVE DOCTORS.
1. Chapter 1

Each Cell That Beats

(Dealing with poor health right now and stuck with not much to do. Can't concentrate on proofing my next book for print; hope I don't stay this sick for long!)

This is set several years into Season 6B, before THE FIVE DOCTORS. The Doctor is still working for the CIA, traveling alone for the most part, and cleaning up rubbish the other Time Lords don't want to think about, much less touch. He'd prefer to go it alone rather than have their notion of a Companion and has been investigating some ugly messes with disappearing "higher evolutionary" species like Gallifreyans, Minyans, and Karnites (A slight hint to THE TWO DOCTORS). Eventually he gets what he wants: He gets his companions back but the journey there is long and hard. Here's the beginning of that journey.

Reading WORLD GAME might be useful, but not necessary as I don't rely on it 100% and I try to avoid the books' various oversights.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Onwards to Season 6B.

* * *

Someone was playing a very long-winded rendition of Thala the Green's improvisations a bit too loudly in the Hall of Learning.

One of the patrons to the allegedly "limitless" knowledge under the Citadel's towered bell-roofs had finally had enough. He looked up for the fortieth time in three hours and sighed, managing not to make a sound. He was a small man surrounded by dusty old books and equally ancient computer disks and tapes and spools and chips. He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation, which increased his normal appearance: rumpled up like something that had been roughly used too many times. His clothing was dark and oversized, and his hair was dark and falling over his forehead. Under a messy fringe dark green eyes gleamed and glittered, marking him as one of the children of Lungbarrow. That more than anything would have given others cause to be leery. Lungbarrow's genetic looms had contributed to many gene reservoirs on Gallifrey, and along with some less than prideful traits, their opalescent eyes were famous.

Right now those green eyes were tired and close to defeat. He rubbed at them in a Terran gesture; several years on Gallifrey hadn't driven his humanisms out just yet. He winced as the music reached a new crescendo of piping. He'd been forced to endure it for the better part of six hours as he moved from station to station of the library, but he had long passed the "endure" part for "reluctantly listening".

Not that it was bad music, goodness no. Thala the Green was the Verdi of Gallifrey, with a heavy dose of Dvorak tossed in. The Doctor normally liked Thala's music but enough was enough.

He sighed, pulling himself up to his feet from the latest data station. A handful of collected notes and two heavy books—his 500-year Diary and his half-empty journal—tucked neatly inside the crook of his arm. In his battered frock coat he fit poorly with most of the absent-minded academics poring over the library's resources. Gallifreyans liked their clothing...pretentious. It dryly amused the little Renegade that his appearance had labeled him as one of the many struggling Old Town citizens, valiantly trying to improve his life on a scholarship and thus crawl out of the poverty and crime in the fringes of Gallifreyan society.

On appearance alone they had him mentally filed as a callow youth in his first regeneration, grimly juggling the obligations of work, home, family, and academic achievement. His sloppy hair and clothing was proof he hailed from the lower Old Town district, where the citizens couldn't be expected to afford better grooming, or the Time Lord level of accomplishment that let them control their hair growth consciously.

_And I do look the part_, he thought in a sudden flash of dark humor. Just the other day he'd picked up on the whispers of speculation based on the assumption that he was one of the new, basic-trained technicians for the upcoming Architectural Advancement Posts, trying to improve his mind between duty shifts. There were more of those now than back when he'd fled with Susan. Not an encouraging sign of the times!

The few other researchers moved with absent politeness out of his way just as he moved to avoid their paths. He clutched his burden closer to his chest as he circled a large desk towering with ancient books, paying them a wistful glance. Perhaps tomorrow. Right now he needed to find a quiet place and go over what information he'd gleaned out of the materials on hand.

He walked out of the Hall with a bit of relief under his dissatisfaction (his day was not perfectly successful, but nor was it a loss), ignoring as usual the docent's glare of cold disapproval (it was either from his choice of dress, or his very existence because the docent was a retired high-standing Time Lord, and either baffled Time Lords and Time Lords really didn't like to be baffled). He wandered his way to a small Refreshment just barely close enough to the Wall's perimeters that the CIA wouldn't send out a guard and collect him. Goth, his latest "Keeper" was ostentatious when it came to displaying his authority, and had a habit of "demonstrating" that authority as often as possible.

When Sardon had been the Doctor's keeper, the dynamic had been completely different. They agreed to exist in a mistrustful partnership comprised of about 30% loathing and the rest with grudging respect for the other man's ability and did their best to ignore the gaping chasm that stretched between their ethics. Even the Chameleon Arch wasn't enough of a bridge between that gap. But they had known they were stuck with each other, and needed each other, and kept to their bargains without too much complaining. After their mutual Trial By Fire over the Players mucking about with Napoleon in Earth's history, the two managed to settle down to a modicum of bickering and testing.

The Doctor suspected Sardon had enjoyed their constant battle of wits. The Grey Man, as the other CIA parolees called him, was not often up against a rival mind—and to be honest, his main advantage against the Doctor was his lack of trust, his ability to smell betrayal (all the better to betray someone first), and having the CIA resources at his beck and call. The two opponents were united in their indifference to the factions and cliques among the Chapterhouses, feeling the divisory roles of public office caused more problems than solutions.

There were quite a few differences between Sardon and Goth—the primary one being Sardon _knew_ the Doctor was untrustworthy to the core and didn't push the issue any more than he would try to persuade the world that black used to be white. Sardon ignored the daily political games among the rival chapters, preferring to concentrate on his results-oriented agendas. Unfortunately for the Doctor, Goth was made of sterner stuff, a social climber of terrifying ambitions, and insisted on trying to re-mold the Doctor in a form that would better suit his purposes.

_Lazy_, the Doctor thought in disgust. Sardon was at least operating without the delusion of pretension.

The little Time Lord settled at his usual spot and the man on duty brought him a glass of courtesy water. He thanked the boy and drank as he spread his notes around for a better cross-examination. Today the weather was out of sorts so that meant the meteorologic shields were up on full power, rendering the Citadel dull and uninspiring in atmosphere. Only yesterday the shields had been down (not the Transduction Barrier of course), and a fresh breeze had sent all the air-bells chiming up and down the streets, and the scent of rare rain on the faraway mountains. The Doctor had spent nearly all of that day outside on the roof of the Wall, simply smiling and listening to how the different tonals made a music that made sense, somehow, in randomness and joy.

Unfortunately, it had finally come to an end, leaving him breathless and beaten, his ears ringing from the planet's forces, and saddened that this was now the only planet he could stand on. If he was to see other worlds again, it would be at the beck and call of his new Masters, because he was no longer the master of himself.

_But they'll never completely control me, _he reminded himself in quiet rage. _ Never. And if I can just stay ahead of their games a little longer, my future selves might have all the advantages I never did..._

"You look troubled, old friend."

The Doctor jumped slightly, and smiled up at a long-familiar figure. "Markhall, it's good to see you again."

"I would say the same, but, tch." The Shobogan shook his head with a wry smile. "Well, you're looking better than last time we talked." He grinned at the nervous patrons. "Glass of Perdition for me, lad!" He proclaimed with a hearty smack on the table. "And something to eat for us both!"

"Oh, I couldn't-"

"You can and you will. They don't know how to feed you, Thete. Not that they know how to feed anyone." He lifted his hastily-brought water to the air in salute. "It's Runberry season, and if there's a darker crime than not paying homage, I don't know what it could possibly be."

"Put it that way..." The Doctor grumbled lightly.

"I do." The Shobogan moved to one side, making room for the notes, the water, and the upcoming bowls of hot dumplings. "You never knew how to eat—or when."

"That's a lot."

"I'm a big man, and you need to make up for the horrendous-ness of nutri-cubes." Markhall pointed his spoon rudely at his tablemate. "And I'm not talking until we're finished eating. Both of us." With that he returned to his bowl in gusto. The Doctor sighed, though he had half-expected this, and picked up his own spoon.

"That was good." Markhall shoved his empties back with a happy sigh. "Runberries—eat them before they eat you, eh?" He contemplated the pleasant haze of fruit and sweetening for a moment. "There, that's done." He announced. The bowls were instantly taken. "What did you want to see me about?"

"Project." Was the curt response. He pushed his papers across the smooth fossilwood surface of the table and tapped a small finger in the middle of the nearest page, outlining the gist of the situation.

"Not many people make a project out of the Pythia."

"You did."

"Yes. I did." He agreed, skimming over the notes. "Not a bad start." He said at last. "Well...my memory isn't so shoddy that I can't remember my old school projects...what do you want to know?"

"That's just it. I'm not sure. My last mission for the Time Lords went...off. I can't remember more than scraps and images and occasionally a feeling. I've been all but commanded to try to get my memory back, which is ironic when you consider they wipe one's memories after a mission half the time...but all I can actually remember is something about the Pythia." He breathed and stared down at his hand, which was naked of ornamentation.

"Why don't you tell me when you had the 'aha' moment. That's usually a good place to start."

"I remember standing in some sort of a..." The Doctor scowled. "It was like a museum," he said at last, dissatisfied. "I can't describe it better, but it wasn't a real museum. It had a sense of a...laboratory."

"Like an historian's laboratory?"

"Yes! That's it! Exactly it!" The Doctor slapped his brow with the heel of his hand. "Exactly!" He exclaimed. "There were artefacts no matter where you looked, but there were also bits and bobs of lab equipment and desks, books, computers and calculators and shelves of resources!"

"Sounds interesting." Markhall rubbed the tip of his nose.

"But what I remember the most, was there was...a display? Exhibit? A centerpiece. It was extremely important." The little Time Lord shook his head. "It was a collection of ornamentation...jewelry pieces of ancient glass ranging in size from the smallest periapt to large throat-torcs. And they were all the most fantastic deep blue—the same deep blue as my TARDIS."

Markhall bared his teeth in a friendly grimace. "You've got to get that circuit replaced someday."

"I like it." The Doctor snapped. "At any rate, I'd never seen anything like it before, but it looked familiar. I remember being allowed near it—there were forcefields around everything—but these jewelry pieces were labeled in Old High Gallifreyan as Pythia's Glass."

Markhall whistled softly through the space where a missing tooth rested. "Now that is interesting." He murmured. "Deep blue like your TARDIS?"

"The very."

"If we're to go by the color of the glass, it would _have_ to be Pythia's Glass. Only Her glass was the perfect color. But so terribly rare! I can't think of more than three thousand pieces left on Gallifrey...well, three thousand and one now that you're back."

"Eh?"

"That signet ring you used to wear. That's Pythia's Glass. Unmarked, but still Pythia's Glass."

"Well, I had no idea!" The Doctor exclaimed. He did it quietly—they were in public—but his tension escaped his expressive face, and Markhall felt a stab of sympathy for his old friend. Perdition knew, they didn't have many of them left from the old days.

"Your family didn't tell you anything about it when they passed it down to you?" Markhall flipped his hand. "Forgive me, they probably didn't know. Most people don't know what they have."

"I'm sure they would have said something." The Doctor tried to sound certain but failed. His mother was infamous for her silences.

"The problem is," the big Outsider spread his fingers across the fossilwood top, "there is a legal grey area about the Glass—some of our laws write its definition as the Glass that has been carved by the Marks of the Pythia—meaning her serpents, her skulls, her Mother Python. By that definition, your ring wouldn't be Pythian Glass, but fused desert silica (There was a brief period of Time in which unmarked Glass was gifted to the Pythia's loyalists as proof of that loyalty. It was a double-edged sword of a gift, I assure you—ensures you wouldn't be harmed on half of the planet, but executed on sight by the other half!).

"However," Markhall added with a warning finger, "according to slightly newer legal definitions in the books, Pythia's Glass is considered the Glass in any existing size, shape, form or function. Since the old laws were never properly replaced, you have two simultaneous laws on the books at the same time. Didn't you just _love_ studying laws in the Age of Turmoil?"

"Oh, I had the time of my life." The Doctor said sarcastically. "When you've got two governments in control and neither one can admit that the other one even exists..."

"A lot like my family reunions, actually..."

"Sounds worse than mine. I didn't know that was possible."

"You can't be tops in everything, Thete." Markhall said kindly. "Sounds like you had an interesting time of it. Can you remember anything else?"

"Phantom echoes, and it's most infuriating!" The Doctor rubbed at his temple, where the faintest mark in the skin rested from a recent surgery. "Even the Late, Great Apeiron couldn't figure out how my memories were removed...they've put me on so many tests and scans, but the memories that _should_ be showing up in their machines are _simply not there_." The Doctor spread his small hands wide, intimating a broad swath.

"That's got to stick in their craws! The CIA likes to know the answer to everything." Unspoken but well-known between the two men was the fact that the CIA would probably like to know how the Doctor's memory had been so successfully wiped. It would be another useful weapon in their field work throughout Time.

"Don't remind me. Every once in a while I'd like to forget." The small man sipped his water glumly. "I've been given carte blanche to recover these memories, and it's bothering me that I can't."

"That _must_ have been an awful mission." Markhall was growing alarmed. "What was it about? Can you tell me?"

"It's not a secret, if you can believe it." The Doctor frowned at the huge man's hesitance. "Even in the Wastelands I daresay the Outsiders have heard about the missing Children of Karn."

"Oh, Death and Time!" Markhall swore lightly. "Yes. I doubt there isn't a single soul on the planet that hasn't heard about those missing unfortunates." He coughed lightly.

"The Karn aren't the only ones missing. Minyans too...other old-Colony peoples with genetic ties to Gallifrey. For some reason the Gallifreyan-human mixture races are being left alone-as far as we know. And there's also the chance that...well...the Renegades like me... the ones who haven't been caught...some of them could be one of the missing as well. Renegades are technically renegades when they don't report back to Time Lord society."

"We'll always have our own share of genuine renegades and exiles-I tell you, Thete. The worst thing about knowing you were wandering the Universe was knowing who you might bump into-that's a dangerous place out there-The Great Vampire King, The Vampire Lord, the Clockmaker, The Toymaker...Crazed Eternals and Ephemerals..." Markhall shuddered. "No wonder they're desperate to get your memory back! The temporal scanners can't find anything?"

"It's an expenditure of power to use those things, and the last time they could justify that sort of hunt involved Omega." The two shared a pained look. Time Lords might be condescending about lesser species' habit of deification, but to find Omega mad and destructive? Gallifrey was still trembling from the loss of an innocence it had not known it possessed.

"But I suspect, going by past experience, that there are too many confidential Events acting in the vicinity that prevents a more direct investigation. Contrary to what people think, Markhall, we're not omniscient. They can't look for something if they don't know what they're looking for."

"Isn't that the truth." Markhall drew circles over the tabletop with his fingertip. "Hmn." Markhall exhaled through his nose thoughtfully. Before becoming a disreputable Shobogan, Markhall had been one of the more promising scions of the schools. Mental abilities and history of their development had been his specialty. "You do know that if you're studying anything Pythian, you'll have to study up on the psychic powers they developed for the women."

"Yes, I know, but...well, History seems a bit _odd_, Markhall. I can understand why the Matriarchy would wish to concentrate its psychic development with their own sex..."

"Well that's only part of it. Back then the Matriarchy was well-developed and extremely hard-headed. Mind you, they often had to make terrible choices for the safety of Gallifrey. It was their control of Precognition that inspired Rassilon and his friends to explore Time with science instead of mental tricks. Later on the courts raised the question of whether it was really Precognition or arranging events to suit the announced prophecies, but it was probably a little of both."

"I'm beginning to wonder if I should have spent a little less time learning Old High Gallifreyan and a little more on history."

Markhall grinned. "You know more of our history than most, old fellow. But up against me? I probably know more about the Pythia than anyone else. Runs in the family, you know."

"No, I did not know."

"Ancestors." Markhall ran his fingertip across the table-top in a commemorative glyph. "The Pythia had _plenty_ of men that were in possession of their own abilities, but they weren't quite the same. For one, they weren't allowed to develop their abilities past a certain extent. Secondly, in the Matriarchy the men were considered the equity of the clan matriarch, and from there the Matriarch of the Mountain, and from _there_ all the way up the ranks to the Great Pythia Herself. In those days marriages were always for arrangement, not by love—er, not too different from what they are today."

"Too true." The Doctor agreed wryly. Arranged marriages were still far more common than marrying for any other reason. He'd missed out on that...but just barely. Thank goodness. At the time he'd approached the proper age, all the Chapterhouses had been spoken for, so to speak.

"Men weren't exactly slaves, but they were "nonfree" or "not-landed" in status which meant they weren't allowed to vote or hold positions of authority in the Church/State. They could reach honored status as warriors, craftsmen, and everything else that didn't mean a position of political authority (other than figurehead). If you'll recall your basic history, this was a direct reversal of our earlier recorded history when men were controlling women and _they_ were considered slaves, _period_."

"Oh, good heavens." The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"It's easy for us to judge, but at the time of the original ruling, the planet's population was less than two million people. Famines, wars, and the natural disasters that spurred the famines had pushed everyone into a fly-or-fail situation, and the biggest pressures were the old taboos against waging war against kinfolk."

The Doctor knew most of this already, but it would be the height of rudeness to say so. Besides, people often gave information without knowing it. "Oh, yes, I remember some of the lectures now." He shuddered. "The tracking of the family lines was the duty of the women, so when a warlord wanted to wage war against the neighbor with all the goods, he would be stopped by the first grandmother who reminded him they were fifth cousins on their second great-auntie Mabel's stepbrother's uncle's twin's eighth-great-grandchild's side."

"Technically, war was impossible if you kept the lineage lines. Ergo, a concerted effort was made and the old histories wiped off; the women were forced to a lower status for the sake of the wars. One wonders if our Galaxy ever had a more humiliating excuse for fighting..." Markhall wondered about it for a minute, and finally shrugged it off. "The whole political dogma finally bit off more than it could chew with Rassilon's people; they were originally a sect of warriors, heretics, scientists, rational thinkers and experimenters and rebels outcast from the Pythia for religious reasons. Eventually the outcasts and rebels outnumbered the Pythia and forced the two groups to get along, but they didn't really. When the Pythia lost her Foresight, that was the beginning of the end."

"The books hint at that." The Doctor pointed to a list of tiny foot-notes in the bottom half of three pages. "They're not really helpful if you're trying to glean hard facts."

"That's because so much of it's lost they don't really want to admit to not knowing." Markhall chuckled. "If you ask me, that's part of the defensive attitude with those old fogeys who don't want us to delve too deeply into our "shameful past"-they don't want to be asked questions that have no answers! Perish the thought that we ever get caught not being omniscient!"

"Ugh." The Doctor glowered.

"So you remember something about the Pythia? What was it?"

"Just...the Glass." The Doctor took another sip of his water, clearly enjoying the flavor of the deep-earth minerals. "I know I was offworld, but I couldn't tell you if I was in a spacecraft or another planet. I just know I was not on Gallifrey, and there was a lot of that Glass."

"Now that's senseless!" Markhall was shocked. "Pythia's Glass..offworld? I can see a few pieces here and there, but the Sisterhood of Karn never took more than a few pieces with them when they fled...what would all that..._priceless treasure_ be doing off of Gallifrey? Surely the Council knows?"

"I tried to tell them, but my memory's so shoddy from what happened...they can't really count it." The Doctor was baffled and hurt by the whole situation. "And the sheer _chance_ of scandal prohibits them to act unless there _is_ some sort of proof."

"Are you sure it's not copied? There are copies all over the Universe-" He stopped. His friend was shaking his head, no.

"It's that perfect deep blue, with carvings of hatching snakelings crawling out of a nest of skulls while the Great Mother Python coils protectively around them. The carvings are all over every inch; you can't get away from them. You can't copy that level of skill and the time it took. It's thaumaturgic."

"If word leaked out that a lost Pythian treasure was on some shabby offworld...more than the Time Lords would be foaming with rage." Markhall honestly didn't know what to say. "Right. For once I'm with the Councilmembers. Best not to do a thing unless there's solid proof. Even a whiff of _investigating_ such a rumor would mean an uproar."

"For some reason...it was vitally important that I commit it to memory...the Glass...and I can't remember why, so the only thing left to do is work backwards." The Doctor looked very tired. "To be honest, my memory in this body has always been a bit dodgy anyway."

"Sounds like our classes under Borusa, if you ask me." Markhall tapped his pinky finger on the table in a gesture that both acknowledged and dismissed the memory as a nasty one. "Well, if you're wanting to study the Pythian art, shouldn't you start there instead of the history?"

"I tried. There's even less of that to go on—archaeology is all but non-existent in the Halls of Learning, and I don't have permission to go through the Archives."

"Hah! I don't think even the Valeyard has permission to go through the Archives! These days they're like old nannies in protecting the records." Markhall snorted. "Let's take a walk. How far are you allowed to go?"

"No further than the ring of sand-fountains."

"My, you are a depraved criminal." Markhall whistled approvingly. "Good for you. I'll be sure to tell my brothers—they'll lift a toast to you in Old Town for certain."

"So long as I'm not paying for them." But the old joke fell awkward and flat between the two men. They were too conscious of invisible eyes and ears.

* * *

Outside the air was thick and static. Markhall pulled the collar of his dark brown robe up to his ears, disliking the way the atmosphere always felt before the shields were released. They trotted lightly to the nearest of the sand-fountains, skirting the single glowering Chessman standing guard as a relic of the old days of the Warlords. Behind the sleeping statue rested the outer Wall, both protector against and symbol of oppression for so many years even the temporal scanners were unsure of its true birth.

"We have to start somewhere, so let's start at the beginning." Markhall cleared his throat, thinking. "Do you still have that blue signet ring?"

"Yes, somewhere...it hasn't left the TARDIS, but I can't wear it; too large for my hand now." The Doctor looked down at his fingers ruefully. To be honest, he couldn't stand the thought of wearing something as...constricting...as a ring. The CIA bracelet was bad enough.

"Well, that's understandable. So you don't know where the ring came from?"

"Just that it's something I inherited." The Doctor shrugged lightly, his green eyes dark with memory. He wasn't likely to communicate with the family ever again. Even his cradle, his traditional Gallifreyan birthright, was probably rotting away on a dusty shelf, unable to be used by his own family members because no one would break custom of putting someone besides their own child or grandchild in their own cradle.

Sometimes that really bothered him, but he tried to change the facts in his mind, telling himself that he was mostly likely finished with fatherhood and there was just not much likelihood of another marriage, which (unlike _some_ of his relatives), he felt was a necessary pre-requisite to children.

Since regaining consciousness in a strangely new body, the Doctor felt more like a child than some of his younger kinsfolk. Literally. He not only had the urge to have fun, he enjoyed fun like never before, but that didn't stop him from feeling lonely and also...from feeling tired of feeling lonely.

"I remember you'd use it to pick locks back at the Academy." Markhall was saying with a grin.

The Doctor returned to the present. He was starting to feel a little unsettled as little bits of memory involving past shenanigans with that old ring echoed through his mind. "Well, you know, I _suspected_ it might be Pythian, now that I think about it, but I was never completely certain and I didn't even take myself seriously. It would be the stuff of a child's adventures!"

"Folklore and superstition hold that the Pythia's Glass was layered with something to enhance one's mental powers. Frankly, I never could find a decent reputable statement to that effect, but I have an interesting theory."

"Oh? Go on."

"The closest shade of blue for Pythia's Glass was in the blue crystals of Metabelis III. That crystal was mined rather extensively for the counterfeiters who wanted to create imitation Pythia's Glass. And we all know how those Metabelis crystals enhance the mind."

"Fascinating, Markhall." What if the ring was really a Metabelis crystal?

"The common myth has it that the Glass was layered with _something_ to enhance mental powers, but the carvings are supposed to mark the enhanced Glass from the Un-enhanced. They're pretty gewgaws, and Rassilon did investigate the glass' usefulness in Industry. For a time it was thought they would become the latest, greatest thing in crystalline calculator technology, but the end results were disappointing; the stuff isn't predictable, and their output varies so wildly that _perhaps_ one unit out of 5,000 might enhance the mind of its wearer, or the power production of a machine. Odd stuff, and eventually decreed dangerous. Funny how that happens. It was a fantastic hope and doomed to fail."

The little Time Lord was scowling like a thundercloud. "Using glass as though it were crystal? That's something I could never understand."

They stopped at the edge of the first sand-fountain park, and settled upon a low bench cut from the stone of a ripe fossilwood tree. On the far side of the park, a knot of young people were laughing up with a game involving balls, sticks, rings, and prime numbers.

"There." Markhall touched the old wall with his fingertips. The Doctor copied the motion. The wall was smooth and cool, unlike the warm rough stone of the un-scorched portions of the wall on the other side. "The Wall of Defense upon the Citadel. It could withstand everything the enemies at the gate threw at it, but a full-impact meteor? That was something else.

"Pythia's Glass is similar to the glass fused from this rubystone Wall. Only...well, Pythia's is older by about 700,000 years, and formed when a horrible-great lump of ore fell from Little Sister Moon into the desert that later became the Death Zone."

"That's a lot of history in one sentence." The Doctor frowned in thought. "Little Sister Moon...so there should be traces of taranium in the glass?

"There is also a very large difference between Pythia Glass and all other forms of glass—there are threads of blue quartz all through the makeup. Makes it very pretty, but very hard to work with if you don't know what you're doing."

"Quartz!" The Doctor twisted his head to peer up at the much-bigger man. "That wasn't in any of the books I could find. I speculated it was colored by the Pythian glasswrights!"

"I found one, and only one entry in the library back in my day." Markhall warned. "It was not from a book that was on the list of favoured reading. One of the Dean's private collections. I was as shocked as you at first, but later I wondered why I was surprised at all. It makes perfect sense. The Pythia were famous for their ability to know "real" Pythian glass from the counterfeits. With their psychic abilities they'd know the difference between glass, quartz, and quartz-impregnated glass with their eyes shut."

"But quartz...that was so incredibly rare back then...If that's the case, I'm surprised there wasn't an economy-crippling black market on the glass!"

"Oh, lots of people wanted it. Quartz being so rare and valuable throughout most of the Galaxies...but the Pythia had placed a proscription on all the Glass as being under the domain of their religion. It was not only rare and valuable, it turned into a sacred material in short order." Markhall settled his broad back against the battered wall, folding his arms across his chest. "The quartz that fused itself into the Pythian glass, though...that was something special. The original impact struck the Silica Desert and fused the sand for a square hectacre. Wiped out all life there for generations. And the Pythia decided they wanted all that glass that blue because its color marked it as sacred as the Mother Python's scales...ostentatiously. Off the record, I think it was more sacred mumbo-jumbo to make sure it would be harder to steal or copy."

"I remember something similar happened on Earth with Gold." The Doctor rubbed at his nose, face clenching up as he pondered. "Quartz is so common on Earth they carve it up like so much loaves of bread and do whatever they want with it!

Great Rassilon, no wonder people keep trying to invade that little planet!"

"There was a political-religious group...Druids...not unlike the Pythia, actually. They had a proscription on gold. All gold was sacred to them, so they outlawed any unauthorized use."

"They must have been _so_ popular with their neighbors."

"So popular that their neighbors had enough and invaded them with great aggression."

"And there you have the next step with Gallifreyan history. No one really knows why the Pythia were so insistent on the glass being their property, I mean, yes, it's rare, it's unique, it's one-of-a-kind, it's pretty to look at...but it became an emblem of their right to rule in short order. Even the smallest, meanest museum on Gallifrey will have a small piece of that glass crawling with the sacred Pythia carved serpents. Serpents, serpents, serpents. Baby serpents with their mother, coiling around nest and eggs in a nest of skulls. If the color doesn't mark it as Pythian, the serpents will!" Markhall gave the Wall a stroke of his fingers for luck. "No devotee of the Pythian Temple would dream of going about without their glass torc. I hear the Sisterhood of Karn has rathermuch thrown that practice overboard, but they still keep small pieces of the glass about them. Nothing overblown or ostentatious for them, they live too quietly."

"_They_ I should like to speak with." The Doctor confessed. "But with their worry about invaders...it's probably for the best to leave them alone."

"They train with weapons since childhood, don't they? I'm not fond of the notion of getting something sharp and hard in a body part." Markhall smiled. "If you're desperate, I'd say that Karn would make a good last-ditch effort to learn something. All you'd have to do is convince them you aren't after Eternal Life."

"Hah." The Doctor perched on the edge of the sand fountain, and rebelliously let his feet kick into the swirling sand like a child's. "Serpents and Meteorite glass. Well I know a lot more now than I did this morning!"

"That's a good way to see the day. Are you on holiday from the dirty work?"

"Not so much. I'm on recuperation leave." The little man tapped his temple with a small fist, making a door-knocking movement. "Still on recovery. Which is fast turning into too much of a good thing."

"You never did well with boredom, as I recall." The Shobogan paused. "I should probably go before someone complains about my presence," he noted. "Are you allowed to go to Old Town?"

"I have no idea, but I've always felt it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission."

"Now that's just like you." Markhall reached over and gripped the small, strong shoulder in his huge hand. "I like the man you've become, Thete. You're finally...comfortable in your skin. You never really were before. Your family wouldn't let you, would they?"

"Some tried to help." The Doctor glanced down, not willing to invoke memories both sweet and sour. "It's not their fault they didn't understand what it was like to be me."

"That's the problem with Gallifreyans, Thete. They think just because the Lords of Time and Space live on this planet, that obligates them to understand everything, from the smallest blade of grass to the highest star. Understanding's not always the important thing. It's knowing there are some things outside of understanding that frees the mind."

"Thank you, old friend." The little man smiled and briefly covered the big man's hand with his own. In that moment, Markhall saw the young, idealistic, hard-working youth back in school. The long-limbed, contradictory boy that struggled constantly for dull academic achievement and yet could engineer works of genius that outstripped his teachers by hundreds of years. It warmed his hearts to see that echo of the past living so heartily in this new body. This was the Thete that should have been in school, not that battered, grit-jawed and hungry student. "I should go too."

"Before your Keepers come looking for you?"

"Oh, heavens no. I'm going to let them come looking for me." The Doctor smirked. "Saves me the expense of the fare back."

* * *

They parted ways with the quiet ease of old friends, but Markhall's thoughts were hesitant as he slipped back to his rightful domain in the Old Town. The Doctor was clearly the man he remembered, but he had also become something else. Was it from his years in exile? Or just the sum of his experiences? Thete felt...vibrant, like his body belonged to a much younger man. Well. Not that he was old—he was probably less than 500 still! Very much a bouncing youth, young enough to start another family, and mature enough from his years to do a good job of it. Perhaps this new body was his chance to do what he could never do when he was young. Have fun.

Markhall quietly grinned at the thought, for it made for justice.

He paused at the Gate, and flashed his battered old ID at the scanner. On the other side Old Town rested—older, yes, less kept up, with riotous succulent vegetation crawling like so much vandalism about the once-clean lines of the buildings. People walked here, or used lower-technology like solar power for their needs. Crime existed here in great abandon—but so did freedom and creativity.

The big man paused at a wall mural made up of thousands of small bits of broken tile. The mosaic had taken almost a hundred years, and its image tended to show up on every Gallifreyan art-documentary as a provocative work of genius. It was a scene from one of Old Town's murkiest moments in history, when the Pythia's blood-kin were hiding out from Rassilon's Purge.

Markhall studied the images quietly as children ran in the street. The artists had been very careful to show the glass torcs and bracelets and coronets of the Pythia; the blue was the wrong shade, but that was to be expected. Nothing could imitate that luminous, spectral shade of azure. Glass serpents coiled around the glass necklaces and bracelets, implying living chains of unblinking reptiles.

He shuddered, chilled by a faint premonition that he didn't understand, and looked away. Thete was being Thete, and as usual, everything he did was leading to trouble. That was his nature; it was how he was and what he always would be. Understand? Why would anyone try to understand a force of nature?

Why would they want to?

Troubled with his thoughts, which whispered worries about his old friend, the big Shobogan moved deeper into Old Town. It was dirty, unsafe, and full of youngsters angered against the ruling aristocrats that called themselves Time Lords. He preferred it for its honesty.

Not so long ago, Thete would have been a Shobogan too—but Arkytior made that impossible. Markhall still didn't know all the details—no one did, he suspected—but everyone knew that Thete had become a renegade for the sake of his grand-daughter as much as for himself.

Well, Rivers of Rassilon bless them both. Sometimes one had no choice but to fulfill their destiny. He put his broad back completely to the brittle-looking conceit known as the High Towers of the Citadel, and returned to the murky shadows of Old Town's rough streets. Night was coming, and it was time to sleep.

Markhall would not have been pleased to know that other minds had just woken with the night, and that they were thinking of the Doctor as well. Not, it should be added, in a good way.


	2. The Odeon

The Citadel was quiet.

The setting of the South Sun was a glorious time to reflect the state of the Universe on Gallifrey. Gas-clouds had been forming from the Nebulae for the past millennium and tonight's spectrum would be heavily into the golds and greens that inspired so much of the planet's finer poetry all the way back to the First Age of Contemplation. There was _just_ enough ambient light trapped in the atmosphere to reflect shimmering silver streams upon the forest-banks, and the air cooled with the departure of the Suns, sending a low breeze to shush and sing through every leaf and blade of arrow-grass. Art-chimes depending upon the open eaves of every domicile fluttered and rang with the wind, each creating a unique note from the others'. The very pride of the city was illuminated in the soft glow. Meditation and contemplation positively vibrated from every twilit pore.

The long, lean man watching the view was only partially soothed at the vision of loveliness. At last he turned away from the walls of glass and re-settled at his desk. Inside the walls the night's selection of Gallifreyan Classics played long, trembling notes of finest perfection. It was a small luxury he permitted himself for a Time Lord must be seemly with his cultural awareness.

Other signs of Gallifrey's importance to the Galaxy rested in the giant crystal globe, grown out of its matrix right in the middle of the room and stained with native ores and radiations to represent the galaxies. Thirty feet overhead suspended the honored sigils of the Officer of Honor, and the walls were decorated with tasteful Classical art, from one to twelve dimensionals. The room was illuminated with hidden lamps carved from the red salt beds of the Okan mountains. As the light died, it cast in the last spectrum and reflected in the ancient blue-opalescent glass artefacts adorning the heavy bronze armour of the ancient Pythion Warriors—one of Gallifrey's darker chapters indeed. They and the other emblems of the past rested on this topmost floor of the Wall, reminding all who entered of the price they paid to break away from the past...and also its resulting rewards.

Peace, serenity, and **power**.

* * *

Celestial Intervention Agency Chair Coordinator Goth was not in a good mood, but that was to be expected of anyone burdened with the sheer mind-numbing nobility of his office. Few Gallifreyans ever became Time Lords; fewer still became _real_ Time Lords. Trickling further up the ranks of honor and exclusive nobility were the governmental beings who ensured all operated as it should.

And then of course, there was The Doctor.

Proof that the Universe had not yet finished ironing out its quantum kinks.

Despite the constraints of the Time Bracelet, Tattoo, strict rules of behavior and a succession of hapless Parole Officers, the Doctor's skill for solving problems remained as fine as ever. Alas that his "skill" depended on not just unearthing the specific problem he was sent to fix. He also tended to dig up and toss out anything else that caught his scatterbrained attention. Discreet medics (and technicians, mechanics, lawyers, art collectors, historians, librarians, mathematicians and the occasional zoologists) were now on call to help "clean up" whatever he'd excavate, because, Rassilon Alone knew what the beggar would dig up. Better to prepare for the worst.

The last three missions had been technically successful but collaterally disastrous. Goth personally would have breathed his relief and concentrated on more re-rehabilitative Agents if the Doctor had died (after the paperwork), but it was an understatement to say everyone at the CIA was overloading with the information he was bringing to the table. In 800 years the CIA had created no more than twenty "eyes only" reports of confidence and political sensitivity. Thanks to the Doctor they were now the dubiously proud guardians of twenty-five, plus seventeen "sensitive classification" files and two reports that had required creating an entirely new category for the cataloging system. The Doctor had helpfully dubbed them the "crisis pending" listing, which Goth was certain was but one of his many small acts of revenge against his keepers.

The last series of missions, would their purpose made public, have created a firestorm of panic and not a little xenophobia. The whole bit had been buried with the Chancellor's and Council's compliance. Even the Doctor had agreed the information was more damaging than not, and Goth had learned to fear the circumstances in which they agreed on anything. He just hoped no one thought to investigate _anything_ that involved The Terrible Zodin for a few hundred years.

And then there was that last mission...

Goth had no idea what would happen if the Doctor regained his memories from that one. Memory-tampering was tricky when made so soon after a _previous_ memory-tampering, and the Doctor's mind had been wiped after the mission just prior—leading the Agency to realize just a little too late that there were disadvantages to erasing a brain like so much scribbling.

CIA parolees were implanted with protein-based mind-filters that blocked input of forbidden information—or, depending on the setting, retained the memory without it escaping to accessible memory. They were usually efficient and rarely developed problems, but they could only do so much. Against the weight of that last mission, it had turned all messy with the filters shutting down in shock.

Anything that put the Sisterhood of Karn into Gallifrey's socio-political problems was bound to be nightmarish, and an investigation on missing Karnites spelled "disaster" in every language in the Kasterborous Galaxy.

The Doctor was a renegade and a wild animal kept on a leash, but even animals were audited. They had almost lost him and _Goth_ would have been the one to explain it all before the Advisory Committee.

And Goth still didn't know what he _could_ say. None of them did. He was far from a fool and his tactical strategy tests were still uncontested, but...

Six months had passed without a single word from the Doctor on what he was doing, but there were no alerts from the spyplants in the TARDIS nor any warning life-system chimes coming off the machines wired to the Doctor's body. That meant he was still investigating the missing Karnites. The CIA had shrugged, for Time was Time and some Agents could spend hundreds of years with a problem—the Doctor usually solved his in record speed (sometimes even less than a Standard Year) so it was almost encouraging to see him struggling like all the other mortals.

And then the TARDIS simply vanished from all energy readings.

Three weeks later, after the CIA had completely exhausted its information network and posted a temporal alert. Their best conclusion was that someone had immobilized him and stolen his joke of a TARDIS because only a desperate degenerate race like the Daleks or Sontarans would want the decrepit old fossil.

Once or twice the Temporal Web Screens received a faint pulse inside one of the quasars on the other side of the Promethean Constellation that _could_ have been their Agent; it was too vague of a reading to tell, like catching a pin galaxy and trying to analyze all life within it before its attosecond expired.

They found his future selves' Timelines with a little trouble, and even a whisper of his previous self (that original incarnation was truly a crafty old hibernating pigbear when it came to hiding), but nothing at all for the current Doctor whose incarnation was being used by the CIA.

Then without warning, the Doctor's TARDIS had bipped on their sensors seconds from escaping a Temporal Lesion on the other side of Prometheus, but the Rift-blasted old machine had somehow resisted their efforts to bring it back. Clearly out of control, it had shot past the Mainstream of Time at speeds that graceless old tank wasn't capable of keeping, and vanished into a rouge wormhole—The Staff Physicists were still quarreling over how that was within the levels of polite mathematical possibility even as they pilfered each other's notes in hopes of a juicy research grant. Gendellesthan, a product of a less-restricted House, kept insisting that TARDIS was developing a personality and it had behaved exactly as a being would act in a moment of panic, trying to protect a loved one from disaster.

The CIA sensors implanted all over the TARDIS had been nullified by unknown forces, but the bizarre radial energy readings might explain it. It also kept them from activating the Last Resort bomb installed in the TARDIS main console. In other words, the Doctor couldn't be collected, and he couldn't be assassinated in the line of duty because nothing was working the way it should and that included the old TARDIS' mechanisms.

Time Lords hate surprises, and they hadn't dealt well with this one. It had taken another week of frantic scrambling, searching, and yelling (even the janitors couldn't contemplate the horror of confessing to the Council that they'd lost _that_ particular TARDIS and pilot _again_, when Gendellesthan found a homing gasp in the last toe-hold of the-21st century, all the way back in the techno-crippled backwater known as Mutter's Spiral. By the time they managed to trace the signal, the TARDIS was already on its way back to the Agency.

Goth remembered breathing a prayer to the Mad God in relief (the only deity that would be able to keep up with that shabby-genteel beggar), glad the Doctor had possessed the wisdom to return under his own free will, but he was soon corrected of that optimism.

The TARDIS entered the CIA's homing beams as a steaming wreck—well, even more than usual. Temporal radiation came off it like a volcano in full eruption, and no one wanted to think of what could have caused the deep claw-like scores across its front doors. The Techs had been forced to use extreme measures to make sure it landed at all, for the wretched machine had moved sluggishly against the remote responses. It was as if, Gend commented, it was deciding on the wisdom of their commands before complying with them. Goth had snarled the unprofessional remark, but it was unnerving to see how well her assessment fit what they were seeing.

It finally docked, thank the small mercies, and the door croaked open with a final puff of dirty steam, but no shabby little Renegade emerged. Goth followed standard procedures, put up a quarantine barrier, and sent in a medical team. The Doctor came out on their stretcher, aged an unbelievable sixty years outside his temporally locked guidelines, and completely, absolutely, out-of-his-tousled-head-delirious with an infection from a parasite that until this point, existed only in ancient Gallifreyan books under "Diseases and Parasitic Life-Forms Eradicated."

Physically, he was as much of a wreck as his fashion sense. Before sliding into a coma he kept groaning something about an Eelthoey, but it was impossible to say if that was what he really meant; his jaw had been broken. Along with quite a few other bones. Doubtless from the percussion impact of the explosion that left its traces of vastial-dust on the TARDIS. The remnants of the cameras managed to show in spotty imaging the Doctor running hellbent into his TARDIS as if the birds of Death were on his heels. Just as he slammed the door-control to shut, the explosion hit, shot through the half-shutting doors, and tossed him into the opposite wall of the Power Room. He was lucky he'd only broken his bones. Vastial explosions were nasty, which was why Cybermen liked them so much.

Oh, the paperwork from that one. At least the parasitology ward was thrilled to have that horrible little thing in their labs. They could have it. Goth couldn't think of the thing without getting cold chills.

* * *

Oh, the cataloging, the reports, the statements, the long, _long_ hours put in by the mechanics trying to stabilize the TARDIS, the logicians who had to break into the TARDIS and free the mechanics when it locked them inside...the computer designers who had to run forty-five diagnostics before admitting they couldn't find large chunks of data in the memory units.

* * *

The hapless Gend, who finally found a data patch from a junk shop that would at least keep the TARDIS going while they fixed it.

* * *

The poor compuvirologists, who had found the mission's objective hidden away in the Doctor's coat pockets (the contents of which were enough to traumatize the young, sensitive techs unaccustomed to the strange and dangerous things outside of Gallifrey). Glee at a successful mission had paled just a bit when the data cube was assembled into its proper 3-D form and connected to the computers. Most of the data had been damaged by alien psychic radiation and it could take _centuries_ to straighten it all out.

* * *

Then there were the radiologists assigned to clean up the TARDIS, who called Goth up in the middle of the night asking if he was trying to ruin them.

* * *

The luckless staff in the Sickbay, faced with his broken bones and what looked like several months of healed-up injuries as well as the infection. They had been oddly quiet while they knitted his frayed neurals back together. When no improvement happened they were forced into admitting the first chore was over-whelming the Doctor's biological imperatives and renewing his body back to its original temporally fixed status. This depended on getting the Doctor's mental defenses down, and for a week they hammered at his mind with no progress at all. No one knew if he was still sentient on the other side of his mind-walls; there was just no getting past them.

* * *

It was possible the CIA would have been stuck with a brain-dead Time Lord and miles upon miles of explanatory paperwork, but Lehi called Ttoth out of retirement and from there, matters had improved dramatically. The old man's reputation for doing the impossible came through loud and clear when he walked into the Council Room and took one look at the computer imagings of the psychic walls the Doctor had erected between his brain and the infection—and also at the other screens, which included the scans of the TARDIS.

"Whatever you're doing to his TARDIS, stop doing it right now." The old man roared.

Goth had been taken aback. "It isn't HIS TARDIS!"

"It is now!" The Surgeon was still roaring with his urgency. "Send everyone away from the TARDIS! Do it before someone does something truly rash and we have an explosion on our hands!"

Hearts in throat, Goth hastily commed an immediate departure.

Exactly thirty seconds after the last tech had fled the wreck, the Doctor's psychic wall began to go down.

Goth stared at the impossible on the screen. He wasn't alone. "This...can't be." He whispered.

"Oh, but it is." The Surgeon told the Council with not a little satisfaction. "Esteemed Lords and Ladies of Time, may I introduce you to something Gallifrey hasn't seen since the Dark Days." He waved his hand at the slowly-descending bars representing the Doctor's psychic protection.

"Like it or not, collegues, that TARDIS has _bonded_ to the Doctor and isn't going to like anyone but himself in there."

"But that—that doesn't happen any more! And it isn't HIS TARDIS! He stole it!"

"Stole it? Or saved it from decommission and destruction?" The Surgeon wanted to know. "How do we know the TARDIS didn't _call_ him to choose her?"

Of all the thousands of unpleasant thoughts the Doctor was responsible for planting in Goth's brain, that had to be one of the worst of the lot.

"That TARDIS is a part of the Doctor, and the Doctor is a part of the TARDIS. Whatever you do from this moment on, be aware that the two are not to be separated."

* * *

The Doctor's snow-white hair darkened to grey, then deep grey, then finally black; the Time-ravages smoothed out and his brain began to respond to the deep scans—much to the dismay of the lab technicians in Necropsy, who had hoped for a new and interesting diversion.

Least anyone think the Doctor was less trouble alive and conscious as opposed to mostly-dead and medically bewildering, the man woke up with shattered, patchy memories of his assignment and all telepathic attempts to mend the gaps met with his brain wanting to shut itself off all over again.

At least the mission justified the expense of its funding.

There was enough on the damaged data cube to prove conclusively that the Trated Collective was partnered with the Players, and both were stealing, buying and trading intelligent species, all the better to experiment on them for their usefulness in the Information Market. The proof was slender and nauseating, but it was there. So many planets were incompatible to the inorganic species; the purchase demand for organic calculators was on the rise.

Cybermen weren't the only species interested in organic brains. Krotons needed them for power; Dominators wanted them to improve their slave castes; slavery existed in some shape or form in every Galaxy and it all hinged on filling a need and unlike many crops, intelligent brains simply couldn't be grown in a tank or formed in a tank of slurry.

Needs, it would seem, were growing.

The Collective had made much lucrative business with other like-minded beasts such as the late and not-lamented War Lord and some of the races they were interested in "harvesting" were Gallifreyan in origin. The Karn were on the top of the list; the Minyans, Rassilon pity them, were also high on their priorities. In fact, anyone from the Colony Worlds could be seen as vulnerable to the sickening black market. Making matters worse, no one yet discerned the faces behind the ugly crimes, nor the ultimate motives. It was, a darkly musing Sardon had commented on one of his last days in office, as if the CIA was supposed to assemble a report with every third piece of their notes missing. How could they pattern out the root cause of this mess if they couldn't find all the data?

Goth felt some of the suspected clients, such as the Sontarans and their like, weren't that much of a threat, but it was the principle of the thing: The Players were as annoying as only up-and-coming High Evolutionaries with a taste for violence could be, and they were difficult indeed to pin down because unlike the Time Lords, they could set up creches throughout the known Galaxies and simply abandon their physical bodies when pressed for capture. Non-corporeal enemies were annoying that way.

The Trated had been sniffing about the fringes of Time Lord interests for three thousand years. It was time they were dealt with but how to do it when no one knew all of the mess? Karn especially saw nothing in the warning but further proof that the rift between the peoples was well justified. They demanded the return of their missing people posthaste, and until then, Gallifrey could consider the planet well and truly estranged. This was upsetting. The High Council was still dependent on the precious Elixir of Life from the Keepers of the Flame.

The Doctor was (mostly) back to (what passed for) his normal, and Ttoth had been keeping him out of trouble. But the Doctor hated his confinement and Goth hated the sight of him, so they all looked forward to his next assignment.

Settling his resolve, the dignified man pressed a button, summoning his assistant from the outside doors.

"Send him in."

Lehi'o nodded and she tapped a code on her wrist-bracelet. Goth ignored her. Her deep brown skin marked her as one of the Old Guard, and even if he improbably turned into a Rigellian Tadpole she would still follow his orders without verbal complaint.

Ten minutes later, Goth's composure was cracking at the seams.

"What is his excuse is this time?" He asked with narrowed eyes.

"Yes, sir. He may be delayed. Chiurgeon Ttoth-"

"You mean he's _still_ over in the Hospital Ward?" Goth was rude enough to interrupt, but he was so eager and willing to get this unpleasantness over with. He easily blamed the absent guest as the reason for his rudeness.

"Chiurgeon Ttoth's orders, sir. His quartering in the medical wing until final release."

"Very well." Goth pretended it didn't bother him.

Stress averted. The door opened and the Doctor came in.

Stress returned.

He was not, Goth noted again, in his uniform nor was he conforming to dress code.

Goth stifled the urge to take a deep sigh. There was no sense in giving the little criminal the satisfaction.

But if he refused the uniform, why couldn't he wear something respectable and decent? An everyday clothberd, or a simple gisventiar, a kiliand, or even the ordinary civilian dress? He could at least wear the colors of Prydori, or honor the rough mountain peasant's garb of his home.

But, oh, no. Goth kept his gorge from rising at the too-familiar sight. "Did we lose our Uniform again, Doctor?" He asked tightly.

The Doctor's face had been almost static upon his entrance. With the opening salvo, expressions erupted like a chain of volcanoes and too late, Goth realized his mistake in the plural pronoun.

"Oh, dear." He asked with a voice bright with false sorrow. "I'm sure it's all just a simple problem and the Sanitation Workers will find them. Or is that Laundry?" He frowned. "Bother. There are too many titles around here."

"I'm aware it's only been a week since you last acted the fool in my presence," Goth said icily, "But I am getting a little tired of reminding you that you are expected to comport yourself with the dignity and import befitting an Agent of the CIA."

Instead of rising to the old CIA bait (parolees were jaded to say the least about the misuse of "dignity" and the CIA in the same breath), the Doctor glanced down at himself, taking in the dark checked trousers, which were too long; the once-black half-boots of rudimentary animal hide, which were badly scuffed, with primitive laces somehow managing to go in _more_ than two directions; further up to his shirt, which fit him as well as his trousers; a spotted throat-ornament called a "bow tie" that was probably not meant to hang quite like that (Goth knew it was prejudicial, but it went against logic to think the Doctor could wear even one thing properly, and besides, most species shunned asymmetrical designs), and that didn't even cover the coat, which bothered Goth more than anything.

That coat was probably out of fashion years before the Doctor had plucked the wretched thing out of its natural Time-stream. It hung on his small frame with all the grace of the drunken cousin that inevitably draped themselves tastelessly over you at a family party, and half the time one of the lapels popped up at an odd angle. The material was spun out of some misbegotten beast's hairs and collected stray atmospheric energy at the slightest provocation (all of the guards had learned early on to just grab him and get the shock over with whenever Goth lost his temper and ordered him marched to confinement. Again.).

Proving himself not immune to the coat's charms, the static quality of the fibre was responsible for the fact that the Doctor's own hair couldn't behave. It was always ruffled and shaggy and a stray hair here and there would float in the air, made buoyant by the gradual buildup of power from the coat. Goth hadn't seen static electricity since primary school, and it had taken him some time to realize giving the Doctor a comb and barking to make himself presentable was just aiding and abetting a fashion atrocity.

Schism, how Goth hated that coat.

And that was without the pockets.

As if telepathically prompted, the ragged little man reached into one of those pockets, pulled out a small bag, and started eating whatever fell out of it. Goth still wasn't sure if that was bravery or insanity. How could anyone eat something from another planet? How could you know where it had been? His stomaches clenched even as his livers hastily produced copious bile in a desperate attempt to counterbalance the trauma.

"As you said, an Agent, Goth." The Doctor's face was grim and tired, his frivolity gone for the moment. Goth hated his persona of the fool, but when he wasn't playing the fool he was actually worse. He tended to be horrifically outspoken. "And I'm not exactly a Free Agent, am I?" His green eyes glittered. "One might argue that I'm dressed with all propriety as befits an Agent of my status."

Goth's lips tightened, but this was a point the Doctor kept winning. Legally, the Doctor was a convict permitted occasional field trips. One of the drier codes of the CIA gave low-status Agents the freedom to avoid uniform and dress compliance. Originally the code had been drafted to spare the poorer Agents the embarrassment of going bankrupt for the expensive clothing (And the Agency the unwanted cost of clothing agents that would in all likelihood, die in the field very quickly).

Trust the Doctor to not just find a convenient loophole for his will, but he'd grab and swing from it like one of his pet shaved primates.

"Excuse me, gentleman."

Chiurgeon Ttoth's voice slid like oil into the room, followed by a polite cough and the man himself. Goth mentally counted backwards from 3.14(56). Ttoth was an utter professional and best not crossed as his rank was not only equal to Goth's, it was also separate. They didn't even drink in the same establishments.

"I do beg interrupting your meeting, and won't take any of your valuable time." Ttoth said that as though he actually meant it, which impressed Goth down to his Awards Badge. "But I felt I should leave a few items out of the report written for the Doctor's Health."

"Go on, Surgeon." Goth used his best Bureaucratic Voice, while the Doctor fidgeted with getting something small and orange out of the bottom of his goody-sack despite the hindrance of his too-long sleeves.

"My patient has physically recovered on the primary level. A longer period of rest and recovery is recommended, but according to the psychiatric profiling, it would be advised to find to a more _appropriate_ environment." Ttoth cleared his throat again, as the other two men did their best not to look at each other. "I intend to recommend the Doctor as a continuing Agent, but suggest the next assignment be less...demanding."

"Hence the subject of this meeting." Goth answered formally. "Thank you, Chiurgeon."

Ttoth bowed from the neck down. "And be certain to remember tomorrow's appointment, Doctor. Lehi, if he forgets do remind him."

As if Goth needed reminding that Lehi and Ttoth were cousins.

"Tomorrow." The Doctor agreed, and he smiled slightly at the Chiurgeon, who was making himself at home with one of the padded guest-chairs, with a poise that would impress the Lord President.

Goth stifled his annoyance. Ttoth was a medical legend and it would be unwise to forget that. He was just one of the many people drafted from all directions to deal with the constant uproars shivering the Agency since the Doctor's...recruitment.

"The Odeon, Doctor." Goth got down to business. "What do you know about it?"


	3. Apex Predators are Prydonians

Messing with Time a bit with WORLD GAME because frankly, there were too many holes-I'm just spacking a few of them-one of the least being we're supposed to believe that the Doctor aged from WAR GAMES to THE TWO DOCTORS on a single mission? Er... No. And that the book says the Doctor let Jamie's mind be doctored into believing Victoria was with them, but not Zoe? Er... No. Just... No.

* * *

A frown was the reaction. "One of the more peaceful spots in the Mutter Spiral. Probably because it takes such a frightfully long time to _get_ there and back." He paused, churning up information from his memory. "Inhabited originally by the naturally evolved species, the Dra, but they put themselves into a bit of an evolutionary corner a few million years ago and have been in a slow, steady decline according to the Galaxy Roster. If you asked them that, they would argue the point and tell you there's no such thing.

"The Dra share their planet with the new species to arrive, the Nerin. Humanoid with physiological differentiations. Homo Sapiens are the only parallel species that _approaches_ their spectrum, but the DNA of Homo Sapiens at this point can't allow certain fiddly bits like pink eyes unless they're also albino, or striped skin patterns-"

"Doctor-" Goth sighed, knowing the battle was already lost.

One out of every seven Gallifreyans had an encyclopedic memory while the other percentage was largely visual or linear. And then you had the .5 percentage, where they tended to store memory in their brains using all three forms—neural synthesis crossed with memory. A lot of Prydonians had that memory. Wasn't it just Goth's luck that his least favorite charge was in that illuminated category.

"-Dra and Nerin live together in an enviable balance of social and natural resource; largely because the planet is inhabitable to one species half the time—I mean, one-third of the time. The weather is ruled by a triple sun system and the Dra are at their best when the suns are high. On the other side, the Nerin live on the surface in the hours when the suns are in the "young" cusp-"

Goth held his breath and prayed for strength. Sometimes he wondered if the Doctor was even aware of him when he started pulling up data.

"-Social designs have created a cultural system in which the original Dra are respectfully called The Old Ones and the Nerin are known by the Dra as "ii-frenthelikinajansthantarakan," which translates to "pleasant little up-and-coming kids on the evolutionary scale," except on Informal Festival days, in which it means, "bouncy-" The Doctor suddenly stopped, his face utterly frozen in an expression that was, even for him, quizzical.

"Now when did they drop that last ablative?" He asked out loud.

"Doctor..."

Goth had missed his chance. A CLICK of information came over the Doctor's face, which promptly lit up like a lunar storm.

"Oh! Oh, yes! Sometime between the third and fourth Era of Terrace Farming—brilliant time all around. Amazing what happens when ONE species forms a council to determine what new words are to be created, but when you've got two species on the committee there can be so many dreadful things going wrong with the syntax and spelling. That English language on Earth is just messy when you think about it-"

Goth breathed deep. His fingertips sank into the soft paper protecting his valuable and antique wooden desk from moments like this.

"-I asked one of them why they never tried to change it, and they said there was little point; it was changing all on its own and it was better to let the language control them because look what a bad job they'd done of it the first time! Positively ingenious solution when you think of it. That's the biggest reason why the Earth language became the dominant tongue of traders and brigands for a good eight thousand years when they hit hyperspace travel—"

Goth's blood pressure was rising. His mouth opened to rope that little miscreant back to the topic at hand—physically if he had to, the Personal Control Switch was mocking him with its close proximity. Just a tiny tap on the button... ...but his Assistant and Ttoth were glaring neutronic needles, which stayed his impulse to give the Doctor a warning electrical jolt on his Bracelet.

"-and the Nerin independently came to an identical conclusion about their language, which frankly, still gets the Academy all cross because that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen without direct interference from a contaminating agency—present company excepted of course-"

CLICK. The Doctor was back on the right track. Sort of. Goth held his breath.

"-and their word factories meet every year at the Odeon to sift through the best of the new additions and incorporate them into their linguistic dictionaries, literature, art, poetry, and any other medium in which words are involved but since words are another form of Art, you may as well just say they re-write their entire culture every year. Fascinating that they put their children in charge of word-generation. Most species wouldn't admit that the younger brains are better suited for that sort of problem-solving."

Goth waited, but the Doctor had finished (Rassilon be Thanked), and was waiting expectantly for some sort of heavy CIA boot to drop on his already disreputable head.

"The Odeon," Goth frequently impressed himself with his reserves and his self-control, but never more so than when he was in the same room as this dusty little miscreant. "Are on the verge of recognizing several completely new concepts into their language."

"Really." The Doctor's face lit up again, as if someone had just given him a full pouch of those revolting Terran sweets (And when Goth found out _how_ he was getting those things, he was going to re-assign the guilty parties to Close Approach Celestial Storm Watch with great enthusiasm). "Well that's good news for them, isn't it?"

"The concepts are about violence, betrayal, and premature death."

"Oh, dear."

"Naturally we are suspicious that someone is infiltrating the Nerin culture, and not for the better."

The Doctor was frowning again, which again threatened Goth's blood pressures.

Someday, Goth privately vowed to himself, someone would have a sit with that little man and politely, kindly explain to him that after one's regeneration settled, there was no point in punishing one's face any further. A simple, serene expression for a simple, serene face-

Well, simple, anyway, he thought, as the Doctor's expressions went from One to Twenty-Two with breathtaking speed. What _was_ the name of that awful race that communicated only by their eyebrows? This was probably the unfortunate side effect of an extended stay in their worlds.

"What are the odds of it being a natural progression?"

And there it was. Proof that the Doctor was only a surface fool. He was too smart to pretend to be witless for very long. Goth congratulated himself for having the mental superiority to put up with this.

"The odds are calculated at one full percentage against twelve thousand."

"That's...not good. Only by 12,000? By what data?"

"Ours, of course." Goth snapped, impatient. "We always work with the best data at our disposal."

The Doctor said nothing but turned away, tapping his chin in thought. For some reason he thought Goth's answer beneath a response. "It could be an inevitable outcome." He said at last. "The Nerin have officially recognized fifty-six different synonyms for peaceful relationships. What good's a concept of peace without a concept for it's opposite?" (Not for the first time, Goth vowed to find out how this ragged renegade managed to keep up on his reading while living as an Exile; half the time his news was ahead of theirs). He paused, hand dropping from his chin in a loose, fluid motion as another thought came to him. "But their synonyms are always for _existing terms_. They don't currently have any approved words for theoretical or hypothetical relationships. It's all in the solid."

"We are not here to debate, Doctor. We are here because this matter is of concern to the Agency."

"And you brought me here for what?" The Doctor turned back at him, his voice going sharp. Those Lungbarrow Eyes flashed at him, a light color with dark depths beneath. At least they hadn't changed color again. The Doctor's eyes sometimes did that (another throwback gene from the days before the Looms), for reasons unknown and most likely idiotic, but they usually stayed to a mountain jade that reflected all forms of light at all angles.

Goth _hated_ Lungbarrow Eyes. Every single one of the Doctor's relations had that unsettling quality, which fed rumors that their genes had been mis-counseled by a failed geo-artist obsessed with opals. After over two thousand years of dealing with Lungbarrows, Goth no longer scoffed at fanciful gossip. At least it was easy to tell them apart, he reflected bitterly. With eyes like that, you could see them coming.

"The Agency needs someone to go to the Odeon and observe the recognition of words. It's ridiculously simple to go in and watch the Word Factory in progress; they don't have any concept of security measures..."

"Yes," The Doctor said dryly. "That might depend on a few unpleasant concepts."

Goth chose to ignore that. "You will be given funds for your living expenses while you are on the planet. For once, kindly use them. You are living quietly but you are still representing the CIA and as such, you are expected to comport yourself with some dignity—and failing that, a good mimicry. You have the authority to observe and report what you see. You do not have the authority to interfere."

"When have I ever?" The Doctor asked sweetly. His too-mobile face changed again, transforming into a guise of great, childlike innocence and wonder.

The muscles of Goth's hands were moving of their own volition to the control button, but Ttoth's discreet clearing of the throat stopping him from pushing it just in time. _ Just a touch,_ Goth thought childishly. "Be that as it may," He returned to the topic with clenched teeth, "you are not allowed to interfere."

With great long-suffering fortitude, the little man drew himself up to what passed for full height and lifted his left hand in a salute. "I do solemnly vow not to interfere...unless of course, I encounter something that absolves me of that vow."

"And what would that be, Doctor?" Goth asked with heavy irony. "Still looking for the Great Vampire King?"

"He never was found, you know." The Doctor sniffed. "And I _do_ have a Type-40. None of the other ones can pick up a vampire, much less the King Vampire."

Goth's overtaxed brain froze. Had the Doctor stolen that particular old derelict of a TARDIS _because_ of its mythical detection powers against an ancient horror that probably no longer existed? Horrible thought!

Goth actually stood up, pushing his palms flat against the desk surface, his body weight physically preventing him from hammering the control button until the Doctor apologized for his rudeness or fell into another regeneration (this one hopefully re-wiring his brain for the better), apologized for his irreverence, and mostly for just being Loomed out of Lungbarrow on Otherstide (infamous for the level of intoxicating substances and dangerous games amongst the celebrants)—but above all, for being Goth's agent.

"You do not have a Type 40." Goth said very slowly. "You have The Type 40. The last one in the Universe."

"Pity." The Doctor didn't blink. "They were really wonderful."

"You, Doctor, are about as likely to find and kill the King Vampire as I am to inherit Rassilon's Key."

"Oh, _there's_ an unsavory thought." The little man muttered with a quick expression of pain. "Beg your pardon, I need to sit down after an image like that." He sank into the nearest chair and pressed that oversized decorative cloth at his breast pocket over his forehead.

"All this _pleasantness_ aside," Goth marshaled his reserves one last time, praying for meditative enlightenment, and pulled one more deep breath into his lungs, sending the valuable gases directly to his brain, "this was deemed important enough to require a Time Agent, and not important enough that you can get into too much trouble on your own."

That earned him the lift of a space-black eyebrow. "You don't say." The Doctor almost drawled. "I'd be worried about the sudden eruption of new language concepts myself."

"It is an anomaly, existing in a part of the Galaxy that has never had a comparative anomaly before." Goth answered coolly. "Surgeon Ttoth does feel this is up to your abilities while you recuperate."

The Surgeon nodded warily. "So long as you don't overdo it. Recuperation should not be taxed."

"I doubt I'll fully recuperate for another three or four regenerations," The Doctor muttered under his breath.

Goth privately felt the Doctor was beyond any help of that nature, but kept his mouth shut. Tit for tat with that little beggar never ended well. The Doctor didn't have the sense to give up a fight.

"So I'm going in alone again?" He wanted to know.

"You put up such a resistance to the very notion of having a partner..."

The Doctor sat upright, hand shooting up in a dismissive gesture that shocked Goth into falling silent. In that pregnant moment Ttoth held his breath. It was Prydonian against Prydonian, both of them fierce and apex predators of Gallifreyan Society—and in those moments, who wore the chain and who held its key did not matter.

"I don't need a _partner_. I need my friends."

"The matters that require the CIA are hardly suitable for a frail species. We have discussed this."

"Considering the majority of your missions require messing about in matters far removed from Gallifrey, it's odd to involve Gallifreyans in so many of the solutions."

"Have you remembered anything more about your last mission?" Goth asked bluntly. Sometimes surprising the Doctor bore fruit.

The Doctor jumped slightly, the question putting him off his thoughts. "No!" he snapped.

Ttoth frowned at Goth. "I assure you I would report anything of that nature, Sir." He stated firmly. "The loss of memory is naturally of concern as a man of medicine and a loyal Gallifreyan."

"I take my responsibilities just as seriously, Chiurgeon." Goth answered with long-skilled aplomb. "Which is why I rely on my reports, but I also step outside the reports and ask."

Ttoth appeared satisfied with that, but the Doctor's craggy face had changed very little during his statement. His eyes, half-shielded as they were by that untidy mane, had turned to blue malachite.

* * *

Night cast light-shadows across Gallifrey, mottling the Citadel. The Doctor and The Chiurgeon walked side by side down the hall. Neither spoke. For Ttoth this was his patience. For the Doctor, it was a display of an uncharacteristic mood.

Memory loss didn't interfere with Gallifreyan psychological profiles. It wasn't supposed to. Ttoth knew the Doctor was as unhappy about his memory loss as he was his reluctant work with the Agency. The Surgeon kept his hands neatly tucked inside his long sleeves, and his mouth just as neatly tucked together. He didn't approve of fishing for information, much as Goth would like to hear it.

"Would you like to stop by my room for a nightcap?" The Surgeon asked politely as they drew closer to the pair of doors that marked the upcoming split in the hall to separate their paths.

"That would be kind, thank you." The Doctor answered slowly. His mind was a thousand light-years away.

Ttoth keyed his door and they stepped inside. "It's a bit crowded in here," he apologized. "I left my shoes out in the middle of the floor."

The Doctor stepped inside and saw what he meant. Ttoth's rooms were tiny. A narrow bed built into the wall and lined with shelves was the most interesting part of the room. A table just suited for one and a half full-grown Time Lords set in the opposite wall.

Ttoth pulled a small bottle from a drawer under his table and had the Doctor sit on the edge of the bed, which was softer than the chair. "I wonder why they designed all the quarters on this wing like a monk's cloister." He mused. "I'm as fond of contemplation as the next fellow, but I wouldn't mind a distraction here and there."

"My old teacher said they designed the rooms so that one would want to leave them at every opportunity," The Doctor offered. "Presumably to increase the productive work amongst its residents. Her husband said it was to encourage trans-dimensional equations."

"Cells bigger on the inside than the outside. There you have it." Ttoth passed him the drink and they sipped. "I hope you didn't misunderstand my speech with the Coordinator." He opened the floor. "I am ethically bound to report anything that influences the health of my patients."

"Most physicians would." The Doctor smiled faintly. "Was there something you wished to ask of me?"

"Goth is growing more concerned about your...unsanctioned loss of memory. This leads me to conclude that he is looking for confirmation or denial of some event, about which you know nothing. I dislike holes in my data. They're unhealthy."

"I quite agree." The Doctor muttered darkly. "Look, my head's a piece of Swiss Cheese as it is." He mimed stabbing holes through his skull with the fingers of his drinkless hand. "There are a lot of things I can't remember. I _really_ don't want to remember any more than I do already! But this last mission...I have a bad feeling about everything about it, and yet for some reason, I WANT to remember what happened very deep down. Believe me I'm a little worried that I want to remember something that involves brain parasites!"

Ttoth shuddered dramatically. "I wish you could have seen the looks on the Council's faces when I pulled it out to show them, floating in its suspension jar of preservative fluid."

The Doctor gaped in shock, then threw back his head for a long, hard laugh. Ttoth joined in. For quite some time the tiny room was infected with the laughter of two adult men, giggling over a naughty trick.

"I know they want to know," he said seriously once the laugh had played out. "When they return me to my original time-stream, they'll be wiping my mind of all knowledge of space and time travel. They need a map first so they don't take out anything else. I'm rather fond of my memories of skip-diving behind the Academy for spare parts. "

"The memory lock in your brain is a protein-based implant." Ttoth pressed his fingertips together—a mannerism of thought that Gallifrey shared with Earth. "It shouldn't cause you physical harm in any way; that's been the standard form for thousands of years. The question is the coding within the implant." He rubbed at his bottom lip, eyes narrowing as he went backwards in his mind, pulling up memory after memory. "I dislike not knowing the full language of the coding, but then, I don't exactly have that level of clearance."

"I'm not asking you to do anything like that." The Doctor sipped his drink with a scowl. "It's just a problem—and a big one. As if there's two rivalry bits in my brain," he tapped his temple, "neither wants the other to come out!"

"It would require a lot of intensive probing to straighten it out, and not just on the security level." Ttoth agreed. "I doubt you'll ever get approval for the procedure; the Office refuses to permit any deeper Retrievals than they already attempted."

"Which is chilling if you consider I was just on a mission to collect information," the Doctor grumbled.

"And they way they think...if the goal was to get proof of the Trated's shenanigans, then that's probably enough for them that we did get the proof."

"I daresay. But some parties are _also_ utterly terrified that you'd find a way around the blocks devised by Time Lords if they joggle up what's inside."

"Well, now, I am flattered." The Doctor finished his drink but held the empty glass. "They have a rather inflated sense of my abilities—completely wrong but still flattering."

"You've always done the right thing, my boy. For all of your comments about the abject failure you reincarnate into...I know you won't do a thing that will increase _his_ punishment. You're trying to get as much done as you can. I'm just worried you will overextend yourself all over again, and this time for the worse instead of the better."

"I'm more worried about Earth." The Doctor said bluntly. "At least they're dropping me into the middle of things just as they're about to get interesting."

Ttoth chuckled. "And you wonder why I put you under a daily scan?"

"What? Earth is a fun little place...that is if you're not stuck in it."

"Hardly what I meant. I'm concerned of your mental health in the presence of an overwhelmingly alien population. It isn't good for us to be isolated from our own kind." Ttoth sighed. "It may be the key reason why you've bonded with that TARDIS of yours."

"Oh, you should watch Goth when you say that. His face just goes utterly sour." The Doctor grinned. "He does so want to take her from me."

"I argue that the two of you are more valuable as a form of study. No one's had a chance to look at the symbiotic relationship between ourselves and our machines in a Durizi's Age."

"Tut, such language."

"It's only the truth. If I have to argue that more mental tampering will damage the TARDIS as much as it will you, I will. I'm honestly concerned. And with yours being the last of the Rassilon Models...well goodness me, it's like shutting the pages of a book you haven't finished reading."

"Where would you find the space to read in here?" The Doctor marveled, looking about the tiny room.

"Don't be cheeky, young man. It suits you, I know, but I'm not as young and there are days when I can hardly keep up."

"Nonsense. You'll live until the End Times."

"Then it had better be worth the trouble." Ttoth retorted.

"I should go; if I don't check into the Medical Ward they'll come looking for me." The young man rose, returning the glass. "Honestly, some people...have nothing better to do than to meddle."

Ttoth was still laughing when the door shut.

* * *

Goth turned off the channel that gave him the view of the Surgeon's room, and switched over to the Doctor's. Standard security measures; everyone knew they could be observed at any time, and known criminals were always under scrutiny.

Spying on a man of the Chiurgeon's Rank was legally correct but socially questionable. There would be Schism to pay if he had to admit to it, but with luck he wouldn't have to admit to anything. He had his orders, and he knew his duty.

He would follow both.

On the other screen the Doctor was letting the automatic door close, wincing at the click of magnetic locks. His bracelet picked up the coding on the Transmat and sent him to his assigned medical room. It wasn't his usual Oubliette, but it was almost as stringent in security.

CIA Oubliettes were large and luxurious—full of "distractions" to keep the inmate from being dangerously bored. They were always full of overstuffed furniture, art, gourmet food and drink, music, reading, telescreens—even spas.

The Doctor had refused all but the basic levels of everything since arriving, indulging in only learning and music. It still made Goth angry that the renegade preferred books to tapes. But it was possibly some holdover from his years living among aliens in their most primitive eras. Forbidden his "Alien toys" the Doctor sank into his books. Goth had foolishly hoped a return to the Gallifreyan Classics would aid in the rehabilitation. Alas that the Doctor's eclecticism extended to reading. He had no favored genre, or medium. He was even reading papers by Gallifreyan Colonists and they weren't the best example of science.

The Doctor stepped through the forest of books, tapes, discs and notebooks stacked neatly on the floor, stuffed his latest papercopy of medical disclaimers under a shelf, found the nearest overstuffed couch, and stretched out on his back, eyes shutting almost instantly. Goth didn't know if he should be relieved or worried that the Doctor was behaving himself.

He couldn't mis-behave all the time, he reminded himself. He was permitted some liberties because of his recuperation, but that didn't change the fact that he was still a criminal in need of not just rehabilitation, but penance.

Sardon, the CIA's representative for the Temporal Scanning Service's Oversight Committee, had been the Doctor's first keeper, and he'd been only mildly annoyed with the Doctor—an envious state of being considering the little man's history with his own people. The two had circled each other warily as rival beasts in the field and managed a level of respect for each other's intellect and ability to solve problems. Sardon had never once let the Doctor forget who was in control—at the same time, the Doctor performed his duties with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that would have driven Goth mad in a week. Sardon had possessed the ability to overlook the Doctor's personality flaws in favor of his skills.

Goth respected all three members of the Committee. Ragnar was clearly the easiest one to admire; he was in many ways the ideal Time Lord, an official version of the Doctor's first incarnation. Though he had not yet regenerated, he had drawn a temporary retirement to see to that inevitable end in the privacy of his home amongst his family. The Matrix awaited his input. Sharp, hard, and noble, Ragnar was as tough on the inside as he looked on the outside in his orange Prydonian robes. It was Ragnar that Goth was standing for temporary replacement.

Milvo was a direct contrast—and not just because he wore the green Arcalian robes. He was younger than Ragnar, soft-faced as opposed to Ragnar's hawkish lean bones, and took his own intellect quite lightly. This was irritating to many people, but he threw that off as easily as he did his pretentious robes.

And that of course left Sardon, who had no great connections, no House. As a Prydonian that rankled Goth just a bit. Sardon wore grey; he had grey hair and grey eyes; his demeanor itself was grey and everyone overlooked him, even those who knew of his multitudinous roles for the Agency.

Sardon was effectual and painstaking. He had the ability to analyze and make excellent decisions with the outcome in mind over that of the risks. Goth appreciated that, but he also regretted that Sardon's role in controlling the Doctor had to take a down-slide after Goth stepped in his office as Ragnar's pro tem.

The Doctor had so far _performed_ as a mostly model prisoner under parole. The only portion of his sentence in which he could not improve was tied to his ethics and his secondary behaviors. His lack of reverence would have been a shooting offence during much of their planet's history.

The Doctor refused to say he was wrong in his actions.

For that alone, Goth would be content to condemn him to the last powers of the Law.

Inability to admit to one's crimes and malfeasance had led to the worst monstrosities of their people's history. The Dead Zone. The Dark Times. Battles with monsters wasn't a fraction of the pain their arrogance had created. No, Goth had a duty and it was to make sure those under his authority never made those mistakes again. In that respect, he was not like Sardon, Ragnar, or Milvo.

* * *

Sardon stood before Goth's desk with his hands folded neatly inside his long sleeves. "I apologize for taking so long in responding to your summons."

Goth waved that off. "You were busy; I'm aware of the hundreds of little things that can go wrong around here." He leaned forward, waving his fingers into wickerwork over his papers. "I wanted to speak with you about your old friend."

Sardon grimaced. "Hardly an old friend."

"Ah, but you know of whom I refer." Goth chuckled.

"Alas." Sardon said...sardonically.

"Have a seat." Goth waited for that to happen, and rose with the decanter of Mount Perdition's finest distillation. "It's been how long since you were last his Keeper?"

"Long enough that I'm no longer certain that word applies." Sardon responded.

"Oh? You have a better word?"

"Not yet. I have been working on it." The two sipped their drinks in a moment's respect for the effort thrown into the brew.

"I remember the last thing you said to me when we parted ways." Goth mused. "You told me, "He learns fast."

"An understatement, but I'm not certain I would have sounded credible if I'd expanded."

"No, no, you did the right thing. And you were right. He learns fast; very fast. He has everything that we could use in the Agency for our own purposes."

"Everything except our lack of morals." Sardon's thin lips twitched. "I'm not saying his ideals are better or worse than anyone else's, but they are without a doubt...the most inflexible. One simply cannot get around them. He will find a way to satisfy his own honor even as he's following orders to the letter of the law."

"So I noticed." Goth held the moment in silence. "Eventually he will outlive his usefulness."

"I assure you, he is counting on that."

Goth stared at his guest. Sardon looked back at him with full composure.

"That's rather a disturbing thing to say."

"If I could state myself better, I would." Sardon ran his fingertip up the edge of the glass. "It was my duty to make use of over fifty-three such agents as The Doctor. Some worked much better than others; some worked poorly. Most of them died in the field regardless of their abilities. The Doctor was more successful than most. I place him in the Top Five category."

"Ah, the Falconer's Five." Goth nodded.

"In the clarity brought with hindsight, I would say his ability to be successful holds in his focus. He doesn't stick just to a mission. He catches all threads in his fingertips as he runs; he takes those threads and follows them into complex plots and obfuscated materia; he unravels their conundrums and exposes all for the Universe to see."

"He worked better with you than he did most."

"It helped that I never trusted him." Goth suddenly grinned-this was a rare thing for the Gray Man of the CIA. "But he can be trusted to do one thing, and always that one thing. He will see it through. No matter what his task is, he will finish it. His personal motivation is far too strong."

Goth nodded, pensive about his own odds against the little man. Then he caught the wording. "Personal motivation?"

"He wants his Companions back." Sardon said factually.

"Ah, those humans. Yes. Every time we assign him a new task he brings them up." Goth snarled in silent distaste. "Pointless."

"I permitted him a few jaunts where he could have some Companions. It increased his usefulness for the missions. Humans don't expect to be paid."

"I can't bring myself to do that. They're frail and limited."

"Well, maybe someday." Sardon shrugged.

Goth decided to do a little fishing. "We're Time Lords. One would think we'd mastered ourselves with our other concepts."

"We've lost as much of our past as we've gained our future." Sardon reminded him. "To be honest, he reminds me a bit of the old Pythion. If you made a Gallifreyan predominantly Time Lord, but threw in their moral compass, I daresay the end result would be much like the case we're dealing with."

"Now that's possibly the most disturbing thing I've heard all day."

"At least it isn't the most disturbing thing you've heard all week. I hope."

Goth tried to think of what he knew of the Pythia, but most of it was shrouded in mystery and obfuscated by tiresomely repetitious transcriptions of oral historical ballads. Bizarre as it was, he was actually able to understand what Sardon meant; the Doctor was hardheaded in a way a Time Lord could never fathom. Accusing him of keeping some Pythion witch-blood in the family was a relief in comparison because it was _some_ explanation (even if a horrible one).

"It would explain why he never fit in with _anyone_—he never completely fit in, even with the Deca, you know, and they were mostly considered Shobogans in the Making."

The Deca. The Broken Generation. All of Gallifrey still wondered what had gone wrong, that most of their best and brightest had collapsed in on itself with such drama and tragedy. But Goth had a point; even among the young rebels, the Doctor hadn't fit in. Once he'd committed to a course of action, he'd stuck to it. It led him to "betray" his classmate Magnus for his lack of ethics and remove himself from Koschei's politics while at the same time avoiding any sort of commitment with the High Council until they decided his skills were _just the thing_ for their schemes.

"Well he fit well enough with his wife." Goth pointed out. "As long as she was alive he was moderately manageable."

"Moderately." Sardon grimaced. "She was a bit of a free spirit herself, but artists are expected to be. I daresay her calming influence was a factor. Our records strongly indicate his bonds have something to do with his erratic behavior; when he has someone to oversee, he adopts a moderately more responsible course of action."

"You say moderately?"

"He still believes in freedom of choice enough that if they choose to stay in dangerous situations with him, he will not dissuade them. Ergo, I hesitate to call his bonding a parental model of behavior."

"Now that sounds less like a Pythion and more like an Outsider."

"I wouldn't laugh. He actually _lived_ with them for a bit in his wilder youth." Sardon suddenly grimaced. "Bad grammar there. His youth was wild, but nothing like what it is now!"

"I know what you mean." Goth poured more of the ale. The situation called for it. "Would that be where he got his appetite for consorting with primitives?"

"It's quite hard to say. I recall he was one of Borusa's love/hate students back in the day...Borusa was always complaining that he and Koschei were never satisfied with being told the answer to the question—they had to find out for themselves if the answer was correct."

Goth snorted lightly. Borusa had often complained about students that weren't smart enough to directly benefit from his wisdom. Benevolent though he might appear, the old man had a ruthless streak to him that did him credit as a politician. If the rumors about what he did to Magnus were true, then he was ruthless indeed.

* * *

"There we are, how delightful."

Goth gnashed his teeth and thought of pleasant thoughts while the shabby little criminal accepted his plastic packet of traveling papers, ID and (Rassilon Forbid the necessity), a voucher for emergency medical care good for the Colonies. Goth was certain that even the Doctor didn't deserve the sub-standard quality of medical science available on the Outpost Worlds.

Oh, that was unworthy of a Time Lord and a Prydonian. Even their renegades, madmen and the few who answered to both descriptions shouldn't resort to Chimera for treatment.

"Keep to your schedule. It should be fairly simple, even for you."

"Did you use small words?" The Doctor quipped, and peeked inside the pouch for the cluttered up glyphs. "Oh, excellent." Before Goth could recover. "Nice chronometer," he said cheerfully at the small time-piece embedded. "Is it waterproof?"

"I've no time for your nonsense, Doctor."

"You could just say you don't know. There's no shame in the truth."

Goth was still practicing his deep breathing exercises as the Beggar of Prydon dashed into the TARDIS.

"_I expect you to stay on schedule!"_ Goth roared, goaded beyond belief. "Or you will return from this mission under suspension! And if you make a mess of this assignment so help me I will compound your exile in your next Generation!"

"There's no need to shout," The Doctor said mildly, and slammed the door.

Goth hyperventilated in time with the TARDIS as it wheezed out of view.

"I wonder," Ttoth commented, "If those Earth sweets are stimulants?"

"Time Lords don't respond to sweets as stimulants." Goth protested.

"So far as we know." Ttoth admitted.

"I should have added a Tracking Ring." Goth grumbled. He caught Ttoth's interested gaze. "Sometimes I wonder why he was Prydonian." He said defensively.

Ttoth never blinked, but he surely had the urge. Prydonians were proud of being the cream of the cream and the best of the brightest...but they also were frequently accused (among other things) of chaptering from a college that specialized in renegades, lunatics and fugitives. If the worst thing a Prydonian was ever called was 'eccentric' or 'darkening mind of corruption' they would be grateful.

"Originally...wasn't it a fact that Prydon took Gallifrey's best and brightest as its natural tithe?" The old chirugeon wondered.

Goth had to think about it for a moment. "Yes. Yes. The protestors called it 'mandatory culling' but you are right. You know your history. It grew infamous enough that parents trained their children to be less than perfect in hopes they would never see them vanish into Mt. Cadon." To some extent the Cull still happened, but it was wrapped in the garbs of civilization, and political dancing as marriages, children, and extended relatives were all brokered on the bargaining tables like so many chess-pieces in a tournament.

"I thought it was something like that." Ttoth tucked his bony hands deep up his sleeves and looked innocent.

Goth knew he would regret asking, but he was Prydonian enough to take the bait. "May I ask why you inquired?"

"Hmn? Oh. I was just thinking..." The wise old eyes crinkled with the humor the elders held for the youth. "If the Doctor was an example of one such culling, do you think those who engineered his entrance have regretted it?"

"If they had any sense, yes." Goth shivered.


	4. Enter the Valeyard

The Doctor's euphoria bloomed once he was back in _his_ TARDIS. He gave the console a fond pat with his palm, stroked her smooth surface, and slowly walked a circle, running his finger-tips across the roundels. He checked a few of the outer rooms, but found nothing had really changed. The CIA had put a spy-sensor on a few of his rooms on the reasoning that he might use whatever was in them to break the TARDIS free of her moorings. The Doctor didn't believe that cooked-up tall tale for a nanosecond as it dated to after Sardon passed the torch to Goth. One of the rooms had been staffed with his collection of art from various parts of the Galaxy—mostly from his First self. Goth was not an art lover if it wasn't Gallifreyan.

Blast that idiot, anyway.

Ttoth had an agenda in getting the Council to accept that the bond between Time Lord and Time Ship was no longer legend. The Doctor didn't know what that agenda could possibly be, and he intuited it wasn't that important to him personally. So he told himself not to mind the fussings about and he settled back with the business of setting the TARDIS to the Odeon's Homeworld and pulled out his reading material from the Libraries to pass the time.

Time was relative, and the TARDIS could spend weeks in the Vortex to get from a jump as short as Earth to the Andromeda System, or half a minute to get from one side of the Universe to the Edge of Night. As a boy on his first field trip outside Gallifrey he had once had the perniciousness to ask his teachers about the incongruity, but their answer had been puzzling: the capsules were programmed to get from Point Alpha to Point Beta as quickly as possible, and it was only their minds that found a difference in the time travel.

Now that he was much older and considerably wiser from personal experience, he knew what the teachers hadn't wanted to tell their impressionable students: The craft traveled in the safest paths, and those paths were never static or still. If Space was full of dangers, those dangers went to the Vortex to nap, eat, and have fun (often the last two being the same thing, to the dismay of incidental victims in their way). Those telepathic circuits were vital in finding a large portion of those threats.

The Doctor's face was too mobile to be still for very long. It was currently wearing a folded-in expression of deep thought. He couldn't stay here forever. If there was anything worse than being forced into a regeneration, it would be staying on Gallifrey. They'd destroy him in increments by re-absorbing his sense of self into their homogenized Mind.

No one in their right mind would _like_ the fugitive life. The Doctor's collective-total memories of his two lives were anything but flattering about that. But in the years of loneliness he'd learned things too precious to un-learn. In some aspects, he wasn't even a Time Lord. He loved his planet even if his people made him ache to the bone, but now that he was "home" his sense of peace was wracked. The only time he felt he was himself was...when he was exploring with the TARDIS.

Being himself was more important than accepting a placebo life among Gallifreyans. They could promise happiness—but never contentment.

The small man didn't like where his thoughts were going. It was just the loneliness, he told himself. Loneliness could get to anyone, and after fifty years, he still wasn't used to being alone. It made thoughts boil and ferment in his head, and aggravated his natural slant to philosophy. That had certainly come to a head with his future self over Omega! He regretted his words with the Dandy; he hadn't known he would be so sensitive about his personal identity.

_But I should have thought about it... _The Doctor's fingers slid over the loose pages of his notes, unthinkingly memorizing the patterns. ..._he doesn't remember all of the Trial, but he remembers how I protested his face. And suggesting we were both imposters of our Original was just...icing on the cake._

Would things have been better for his mind if he'd regenerated naturally, among his people? Changing out in the open without the presence of another Time Lord was _not_ a common event. Most Time Lords died if they tried such a thing for the first time—if there were any inherent biological flaws that would keep a successful Change from going through, it would show up that first time. The Doctor shuddered at half a hundred recollections. Regenerating solo was the Terran equivalent of being caught out in a frozen wilderness and being forced to remove one's amputate a limb or pull a bullet out of a rib because the nearest physician was back in civilization: You heard of people doing it. You heard of people dying from it or even surviving it. But you never expected to find someone who actually did it. Since returning to Gallifrey the Doctor had found himself something of a sideshow celebrity by the curious-minded and (to be so bold) those with the...macabre...turn of mind.

Another reason to be glad he was off Gallifrey. Gallifrey was too dull and stultified, too settled and far, far too safe. He'd only been gone a few hundred years—half of Susan's life—but in that period of time the divisions between the classes had gotten worse instead of better.

_((Really? Or is it just seeing things in a new light, hmn?))_

The Doctor nearly dropped his papers. He did drop his book; it clapped to the floor with a heavy flutter of paper. It had been a long time since he'd last heard the voice of the Original in his mind.

"You certainly could have the right of it, there, sir." He said aloud, and softly in the aloneness of the room.

There was no answer, but he didn't expect there to be one. The old Patrician was orthodox enough to sleep in his mind more often than not; he didn't approve of all the dilly-dallying of past, present and future tenses amongst oneselves, for it was naturally quite dangerous.

The Doctor stayed put a moment longer, waiting and listening, but he was still alone.

Suddenly restless, he leaned back and took in the confines of the TARDIS. Oh, but he hated being alone. It felt...dangerous, somehow.

But better to be alone than with a bad companion, and all of the CIA's attempts to saddle him with a partner had ended very badly.

His mouth set, making him look much older than his 500 years.

500. He shook his head at himself, facing the fact that he had lived 50 years without Jamie and Zoe. They would be old, if they were still alive in their natural timestreams. Humans changed in proximity to a TARDIS, especially his (so he'd noticed). Ian and Barbara had stopped aging but that might have been from one of the mis-adventures on their travels. Jamie and Zoe and Victoria would by neccesity be longer-lived than what would be normal for their time-lines. Ben and Polly as well but not to that great extent; they were older and the younger a human was, the more malleable their selves.

He had faith Jamie and Zoe would be alive; they had so much life in them that it was unfathomable to imagine them dwindled and diminished...but they had lived their lives without each other and without him.

50 years.

_Time passes no faster for a Time Lord that is aware than it does for a Human. Are we really an immortal species...or do we just sleep away our days?_

He was still considered young for a Time Lord (embarrassingly so and he had resigned himself to the status of "baby of the bunch"), but at least when he was the Original, he'd the comfort of being a prodigy. That had afforded him the comfort in the name of private space, both social and academic. But now he was fully grown and into his first Regeneration. He was still playing the Outsider, and his people were growing less and less amused.

_And I with them._

Humans were better company. They were short-lived, fractious, argumentative, and they did an awful lot of killing each other, but their capacity for violence and destruction never once approached the levels of Gallifrey's in the past. Gallifrey had been a lush world once; now she was dry and desiccated, her people with her. Only the outcasts had any life, and while they would have welcomed him with open arms, he didn't know if their ways were meant for him.

The Doctor blinked and looked down. He had re-read his entire book of notes on the Pythia without knowing it.

_I'll probably dream of it all tonight,_ he thought darkly.

With the poor grace of a man faced with unpleasant events, the Doctor rose and turned to his bedroom. A bit of sleep inside the TARDIS would make all the difference in his health.

And then perhaps he could review his notes about the Pythia with a clear head.

* * *

The Odeon was fantastic.

It was the hub of the trading factions of the City and one of the few places on the planet that never slept. The CIA report had been factual about the populations of Old Ones: they were certainly the governmental body for the world. The Doctor had landed his TARDIS comfortably outside city limits and walked on foot in the cool of morning to the outer gates which was built in the approval of the Elder species. The first thing that took his attention was a large, respectfully painted sign reminding all newcomers that this territory was shared by the Old Ones, and to please respect their rights as equal citizens. After signing a covenant promising not to litter or spit on the native vegetation (as most offworlder saliva and mouth-based fluids smothered the chlorophyll process), he exchanged a payslip from one of the CIA's "frontal" agencies into what was a ridiculous amount of native scrip.

All right, then...?

The Doctor accepted the transfer politely, collected his receipt (hanged if he'd spend a cent of his own funds), and swallowed the beginnings of a warning chill in the back of his neck. It was a good thing crime was almost non-existent on this planet, because he was carrying enough disposable wealth to buy his own weight in Domol Figs.

The Doctor knew from personal experience that he could get a higher degree of generosity out of a Cyberman or better yet, an Ice Warrior on the verge of heatstroke before he got anything resembling kindness from Goth. He'd even pointed this out on one of his shorter-tempered days early in his "probationary evaluation" and Goth had not been amused when given the proof of this observation out of the Doctor's Diary and TARDIS tapes.

Their quarrels never really ended—he was forbidden the freedom of giving the puffed-up tinplate the full brunt of his tongue, but he was at least allowed to take his "Alien Ape Lip Whistle" on his assignments offworld. While in direct custody, he was expected to repair his hopefully not permanently brain-damaged Gallifreyan sensibilities with forays into proper Gallifreyan music.

This grudging compromise (the terms of which being drafted, written, and signed for both of them by Goth while the Doctor was in a recuperative stupor following a CIA job after Sardon had stepped down for a more relaxing post with the Temporal Web Redress Committee), at least gave the hapless guards and staff within earshot a thirty-percent reduction in their stress levels, but of late the Doctor had managed to revenge himself upon Goth by sneaking Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann, Gullah-rooted chorals and Mozart sonatas into the Music Dispensory with ever-so-slightly altered labels. For all his posturing, Goth didn't know a fipple flute from a Gallefreyan Non-Transposed Woodwind from Cardinal Zorac's cousin's latest concert.

One day, though...one day Goth might actually figure it out. He was still a Prydonian, and they weren't stupid—short-sighted with their own cleverness, and they played long games at every chance, but Goth had plans for the Doctor that meant using him for a rung in his social climb. The Doctor hoped to be in another recuperative coma if and when that happened.

_He wants the President's Chair, and he'll do anything to get it...and wouldn't he just love making me one of his allies... _Anyone else would have the sense to give up, but Goth was no ordinary Prydonian. He never gave up on _anything_.

_I was better off when Sardon was my supervisor. Sardon didn't mistake me for a weapon on his rise to power... _The Doctor weighed the money in his hands, guessing the base value of the metals, and it felt suspiciously like bribery. Comport himself with the dignity of his office, was it? Get used to Lording it about as a Time Lord, get used to the other comforts of the post. And once you're comfortable...you want to stay that way.

There was enough money to be comfortable and then some. Troubled at this latest twist with Goth's financial largess, the Doctor distributed four handfuls of coins into various pockets about his frock coat. They sank without a trace to the very bottom of the hem. He made a mental note to take extra care not to fall into one of the planet's legendary canals with his newfound weight, and continued on his way to the Market-Heart. A few native Repeater-birds stirred with the morning mists, and he pulled out his recorder, defiantly answering their calls with his own.

The birds were delighted to be acknowledged in their own language, and he passed his morning easily.

Fresh air that didn't smell like Gallifrey or an airlock...an open sky and colorful forests...alien species that would never be allowed on his home planet...The Doctor was actually starting to feel better. Physically he could almost claim to be back to what passed for normal in his Temporally-static body. Mentally and physically he was still worn thin and his mind wanted to turn morbid. It was probably just the loneliness, he told himself. Time Lords weren't really good at being by themselves. Even from one side of the Galaxy to the next one over, they could know there were other Time Lords.

Living as an exile had been poignant for a lot of reasons, but he and Susan had been together and eased the psychic losses of living in hiding. It was never easy to subliminally lower themselves so that they could remain under the figurative Radar from Gallifrey. But they hadn't been alone and they had been able to talk about it. Susan had grown into her ability to hide under their minds; he'd be prouder of her accomplishment if he wasn't bitter about the cause. Susan had been faced with a terrible choice: send her mind underground to heal or leave it raw and exposed in the open. If he hadn't taken her away from Gallifrey she would be in an asylum.

For centuries they'd wandered and explored, argued and laughed, and finally found peace in a wild little planet that was so amazingly set in its primitive ways there was little chance of any Time Lord coming around. So that had been reason enough to settle. Just to be on the safe side, they'd kept to the earliest moments in history. Never had they gone past the emerging Space Age of Earth and it had worked well for them (Professor Chronotis notwithstanding).

Humans were nice to be around, once you (finally!) got used to the fey music of their minds. He had and it was delightful. They'd picked up on it sometime after they'd fled to Coal Hill. If they'd remained full-fledged Time Lords they wouldn't have even noticed. Over time the presence of Humans became comforting. The Self that he was now positively loved them, for he'd learned what Susan had realized long ago: the longer a Human was in the presence of a Time Lord, the more...familial...their minds grew.

Which was exactly why he was still so bitter at his separation from Zoe and Jamie. They hadn't called him their family, but they'd treated him that way! The children had completed him in a way no one else ever had been able to brag. Zoe's innate sympathy for numerals had given him a knowing audience for mathematics that he'd craved since leaving Susan. And Jamie? Poor Jamie had been a poet of the master conceptionalist without knowing it. Full of life to a fault, the boy had undervalued his own gifts...his supple Highlander mind had easily grasped the concept of repeated lives, reincarnations, the spiritual cost of war and loss...he was an innate mystic with a multilevel ability to think; he'd understood so much more than what he'd known and he used his intuitive brain for most of his functions. Ironically, the intuitive brain saw the least attention under scan, so Jamie was restricted to the role of a "low brain," or "primitive" while he and Zoe got all the attention. It wasn't fair, and the Doctor had quietly taken pains to support the young Highlander to believe in his good qualities. Eventually he'd learned it was simply better to be true to yourself and let what others think go to hang. Of course he'd understood it on some level, or he would have never had the courage to quarrel or fuss with the Doctor. But it was good to reinforce that part of his self-esteem.

Jamie and Zoe may as well represented his two minds, the poetic/intuitive/primitive/creative leap forward and the advanced/logical/evolving—both had been learning from each other and he had learned from them both.

And even though he was older and smarter and stronger and (mostly) wiser, they had both been willing to die for him. It was still a humbling realization and while he had done his best for their safety, he had personally failed them as their role model.

The small man suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his brain frozen up in shock.

_What_ was he doing?

He stood on the path, his body unmoving but his mind racing. He'd spent two days of his freedom just...circling the same thoughts over and over! For whatever reason? He knew how he felt about Jamie and Zoe! He knew how Goth made him angry! And yet here he was, ruminating like a mental cow, chewing up and swallowing the same points over and over, just to regurgitate and start it all over again!

This wasn't good.

His face creased into a dark scowl. While it was possible he might be falling under one of the CIA's eternal and annoying mind-tricks, it was unlikely. His intellect was too high for most of that nonsense (no bragging there, just a fact). The memory-blockers might be acting up...that could very well be it. They were designed to divert his mind to "safe" channels when he got too close to areas their compu-censors deemed liable.

_I'd better make a note of this, _he promised himself._ And hope I remember it..._

Goth was a miswoven derelict, but he was patient. He knew the longer his "Agent" spent among his own people, the more he'd miss their absences. Goth was a Prydonian and a Time Lord. He knew all about waiting for the Right Time. The Citadel had been packed with minds, all humming at basic Gallifreyan levels...except for his.

Keeping his mind toned down on alien planets was one thing. Doing it on Gallifrey was gruelling. It taxed his nerve and his wits to tearing point; it added to his heavy strain and every day he was in that glorified, dreadful prison he had to fight not to overstep his limited freedoms. Goth would be happy to set up events so he would trip himself up all over again and either increase his punishment or drop him without warning back into his interrupted Time Stream, his sentence unmitigated and carried on to the next two, possibly three Regenerations.

_Ugh! Did it again!_

The Doctor clapped his hands over his ears, which did nothing but the distraction and the illogical action disrupted the circular thought. He breathed deep, relieved. Right. For some reason his mind was being directed into obsessing about his punishment, his exile, and how much he hated Goth. (Adding that to the mental file).

He paused, listening but caught nothing inside or outside his head for the moment.

_Well, that is interesting... random and illogical acts break the spell so to speak.._. His eyebrow floated up, wryly amused that he'd just performed the mental equivalent of turning his jacket inside out to fool the piskies. _Hmmn..._

* * *

A Repeater-bird fluttered overhead with a sudden trill. He looked up with a smile, pulled out his recorder, and answered it back with a polite extra three-note geep on the end. The avian circled around his head in a courteous thanks and farewell with its song left open, which gave him the opportunity to return to the conversation the next time they met. He grinned at the bird as they went on their separate ways. Repeater-birds were really lovely beings. They _knew_ any language they chose, but creating songs together was their chosen method of communication. There was no higher calling.

He waved goodbye, thinking wistfully of the times in which he would have been glad to communicate only friendship. It would have made so many times much simpler.

* * *

For almost a day, the Doctor could put aside his mission and have some fun. It was long overdue, and the Time Lords thought it was a tiresomely necessary part of the assignment for their Agent to wander around and gather information and atmosphere. He wasn't about to dissuade them of the notion.

For hours he drifted through the marketplace, taking mental notes on anything interesting—well, the Market was interesting. He was looking the way he always did: for elements out of place or not in sync. That would alert him to any trouble faster than a thought.

However, there was little to alert.

The Odeon's topics were a commonplace fact. The kiosks for information posted copious notes and speeches on the upcoming debates and the Doctor contentedly collected free copies for his personal study. On the personell's side of things, he went looking for opinion on the street, and there things got a little strange.

"The debates? We love them. They're a fascinating use of language in their own right—it's what happens when you have all of those sharp minds together in one room!" A plump grocer wrapped up his order of dessert-fruits in soft paper as she spoke. "And anyone is invited to attend, but I haven't since oh...it must have been five years ago. They were working on new concepts for comestibles. Brought the entire Market in on that one!"

"Did you enjoy the debates?"

"Certainly. You always learn a lot. It also keeps our language from getting dull, don't you know." She grinned at him. Her genes were an interesting creation of tigrish stripes of melanin over her soft brown skin.

"Well, is there anything about the upcoming debate that would bring your interest?" He tucked his supper under his arm and made a show of fishing for coins—it let him pull out the right amount whilst giving the impression he had very little money. He really didn't want anyone to know he was walking around with about five extra kilos in currency!

"Not as such, no. I'm sure the young ones will go—they always have a good showing."

"What are the new concepts this year?"

"Diplomacy this time. I believe being a commercial trader I already know all there is...and what I don't know, I'll learn soon enough by the young ones when they come to my stall! Thank you, sir, and do come again."

Diplomacy, was it?

His eyebrows going skyward, the little Time Lord continued his random wandering across the Market. He paused at a drinks-stall and bought a Market-cup, paying extra to have the extra tallies marked into the side. That done, he took it to the local well where the wellkeeper pleasantly filled the cup with cold artesan water and cheerfully marked off the first tallymark for him.

"Don't forget, the tallies double in worth when the suns are up," he was cautioned. "You don't want to overdo it when it gets hot."

"Thank you, I'll remember that." The Doctor sipped and chatted a bit, asking the man the same questions as he had done the grocer. The answers were the same. No echo of unpleasant words or topics; just...diplomacy.

* * *

Variations of the same continued to happen no matter where he went. He visited an art gallery, stopped to watch a parade on its way to the Odeon's heart, threw a coin to an Aesthetic Beggar playing a decent double-drum, circled the Venomous Lizard-Charmer with a great deal of trepidation, and finally bought a quick dinner at a fisher's stall. The aroma of fried fish and chipped vegetables reminded him too much of London for his powers to withstand nostalgia.

The little man found a shady spot where four or five different species were drinking a spectrum of waters, and took a seat. He ordered the Artesan Water for his now-empty cup. The first sip was chalky and pleasant on the tongue; he sipped slowly, glad to feel the living dynamics of water again. Everything was so stale and bland in the Citadel, the Wall, or Xenobia, the CIA's personally funded space station.

The day would get much warmer before it finished. He temporarily doffed his large coat and leaned back with his glass, to all appearances a traveler waiting for an appointment. He was wearing long sleeves for once, but he was gratified to note that many bared arms were adorned of tattoos similar to his own—and the CIA bracelet would not be out of place in style and form. A few of his drinking-mates were clearly reformed convicts from other planets. Minyans, mostly, and they wore the clothing of penitents on Walkabout. So long as they lived quietly they would be treated with courtesy.

What Minyans were doing all the way over here was anyone's guess, but they did tend to voyage in teams for extra protection. They were a slightly paranoid race. Just look at Dastari, who, nice as he was, still seemed to think the weight of his intellect alone was holding up the weight of the Universe.

The water gave him new energy and he smiled as he watched the ebb and flow of living beings. Most Time Lords would be claustrophobic in this atmosphere, which was doubtless why they'd sent him. He was willing to "get his hands dirty" and consort with other species.

Most Time Lords considered Gallifreyan Colony peoples the radical extent of the spectrum; Minyans were the opposite side, but Outsiders and Shobogans were just as "bad" depending on the circumstance. The Doctor was not happy about the entrenched prejudices for they seemed to get deeper and deeper the more he watched. He knew it was all about the self-imposed isolation of the planet.

There had been a time when he'd been just as hidebound as the worst of them, but life has a way of battering down stale notions—if you actually go out and live. What would his people think if he even tried to tell them of his studies in Tibet? They wouldn't understand. They never understood why he'd made friends with the old hermit half-up the mountain! An old fossil, they'd said. Silly old man, no head for science. The world's passed him by-and it'll pass you by, my boy, if you keep spending your time with him!

_They'd sniff at the spiritual science and demean the humans for adopting another alien race's philosophy, unable to believe humans could come to their own conclusions on something. My old teacher, he would have understood._

One of the worst issues was the capacity for violence. The Doctor had stopped counting the number of times a Time Lord like Magnus comfortably recited a "well-known" fact that humans were the most violent species in the Universe. The Doctor never stopped responding with, "Now that's simply not true." The other Time Lords never knew what to do when he failed to agree—the Doctor was speaking against Fact as they knew it, in the comfortable shield of Temporal Web Screens that recorded action but precious little motive. All they saw was violence; they never stopped to ask themselves what was the motive behind the violence; what was the understanding?

This was making him gloomy, and it reminded him that he was without the humans who had known him best. His face shadowed and he glanced down, studying his glass of water. So much of the fun of exploring had been taken away from him with his isolation. It just wasn't the same when it was only yourself and always yourself. The few Time Agents were dull, dry, and paranoid. He was often rude to them, impatient with the uselessness of their knowledge.

Jamie and Zoe would have been just as happy to be here. They would clamor for something to eat or a place to explore, and bicker and quarrel and laugh and they would tease him for being childish but they would have stayed with him. Eventually, he knew they couldn't have spent their whole lives with him—they lived so briefly, but they lived so well.

Jamie especially...The Doctor hoped that Jamie had not only survived, he'd gone on to introduce his excellent genes back to the human race. After encountering a certain soldier who was clearly Jamie's descendent in both biology and psychic stamp, the Doctor had known that someday he would part ways with the boy, but knowing a tiny bit of the ending soothed his loss a great deal. Earth needed more Jamies; the Universe needed them as much as they needed more Zoes—calculators who weren't satisfied to be just pure mind. She had chosen to be more, and had been willing to risk herself for it. She reminded him a little much of himself in that phase of his youth...

He wondered how she was doing; she was still a child when they parted ways, not finished with growing and she would never be a large human.

His thoughts were not cycling as badly as they had been (being aware of it seemed to help), but they were making him restless, and that usually made him rash. The Doctor sighed, quaffed his second glass of water (this one was a lighter, sharper bouquet with a floral tang of deep-earth minerals), and rose to his feet. A top clinked to the table top loudly, as was polite for the Odeon, for the ring proclaimed the metals true and not counterfeit. He shrugged back into his coat, knowing he'd be grateful for the shield against the sun very soon.

He was just walking out of the cool shade of the tent and planning his supper at an open-air balcony so he could eat and observe at the same time, when he collided nose-first into the broad chest of a huge man caught tripping over an elder's fallen cane. A wave of sickening emotions swept over him by the accidental contact: hatred, self-hatred, darkness, cruelty, depression, joy in destruction, and trickery. The holster of an energy-stunner prodded against the Doctor's hip for a moment then large paws pushed him roughly away to crash against the sold stone table.

"Watch it, you old fool!" The big invader was snarling to the hapless old man, who was quite blind as well as deaf. In rage he glared, his ice-cold brown eyes sweeping like murky floodlamps back to the Doctor. "There you are!"

"Oh, my giddy aunt," he gasped and, not surprisingly, took off like a rabbit with the Hound of the Baskervilles howling at his ankles.

The Valeyard growled to himself, stuffed his weapon back into hiding, and took off in pursuit.


	5. When Mine Enemies Talk

"You look troubled, if I may be so bold."

Goth glanced up from his reams of paperwork at the tall, grey man striding into his office. He started slightly (mentally; never showing the disgrace physically), and glanced at the sand-clock. Yes, Goth was right on time. Punctual to a fault.

"The joys of one's post." Goth admitted, and neatly shuffled his papers together, slipped the CIA seal over the tube, and slipped it all in a piece down into the archival creche. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"I assure you, I am at the disposal of the CIA." Sardon assured him.

Of course. Sardon had held this post in the past and though he had moved "up" in his schemes of power, it would be politically idiotic to not recall his own history. Goth stifled a smile, because he believed he completely had the measure of this Chapter-less man in his grip. Sardon, he had decided long ago, would do nothing to lose any of his toe-holds of power. As a member of the House of Prydori, he would naturally be an ambitious rung for Sardon's interests.

"Nevertheless, I will not keep you from your other engagements. I am aware we must all wear many badges of office in this day and time." Goth leaned forward and laced his fingers before him. "I was reviewing some of the older files on our agents and had a few questions about them." He un-laced his fingers and used the tips to press the foremost disks of information forward. The glittering data-disks each bore the sigils of the agents in question.

"This one for starters," he began with a tap to a dull green disk adorned with a single looping glyph that meant "tool", only, unlike most other emblems, this was painted in red ink. "Is he really and truly as intelligent as the reports say?"

Sardon blinked, a brief and rare expression of surprise crossing his lean face. "If anything, I felt it wise to err on the side of caution." He confessed. "If the Doctor was untrustworthy, _that_ one was completely untrustworthy in ways the Doctor never thought of." He lifted his left hand, middle three fingers extended parallel in a gesture of emphasis. "While The Doctor is not someone you would trust to follow you blindly, _that_ one makes him look like a model of good behavior. No matter what he did or what he would do would be patterned with an eye to his own advancement.

"Not," Sardon added quietly, "to say that he was worthless. He accomplished things no other Time Lord has ever dreamt of doing."

"And yet you never thought to recruit him to the CIA?"

"Not _overtly_, no. He was ultimately dangerous. The Doctor, in contrast, ultimately places such a high value on life that there are some issues in which one needs never worry."

"Really." Goth deadpanned, and felt he did an admirable job of staying collected.

Sardon almost smiled, which might have garnered Goth's enmity...if he as a Prydonian wasn't above that sort of thing.

"The Doctor would never willingly use lives as expenditure. He will if he must, but he will not do it because he wants to." The grey man tipped his head to one side, almost curiously. "It makes him useful...but it makes him dangerous." That last part was said quite softly, and evenly, as if the owner of the voice was reading off a shopping list.

Goth shuddered. "What can you tell me about him, specifically?"

"Pros and cons? Well, if we must start with flaws...start with panic. It's his greatest flaw of all." Sardon pursed his lips, gaze turned inward and thoughtful. "He didn't Renew from his Old body into a bouncing ball overnight; it had grown into his personality after some (to say the least) unsettling readjustments to his new _corpus_." The man's grey eyes regarded the other's silently and pointedly without judgement. "It was the verdict of the CIA medical officers that finally and at long last, his brain again had a physical vessel that could keep up with his mercurial thoughts. Too bad for him that he had adapted in a less than cozy environment."

Goth knew that felt right; he was willing to accept this insight. "Understood."

"Also," Sardon was not finished. "Considering that he knew more than most (Gallifreyans included) just how horribly _dangerous_ the Universe was, the Doctor's habit of dashing off first and then stopping to think is understandable. Contrary to myth, he _does _do more than just face on danger and possibly certain death with a 'oh let's go see' attitude."

"It has been my experience," Goth threw in, "That the Doctor would rather face danger than not know what was going on, but he does try to deal with the gaping jaws of death with the greater part of discretion."

"Beautifully said, sir." And Sardon smiled...sardonically.

* * *

On the other side of Mutter's Spiral, the Doctor was busy working, else he would have cheerfully volunteered to throw his annoyed attitude into the debate between past and present Keepers.

He would have pleasantly added the following to the conversation: That sdding to his Gallifreyanly toxic mix of faults (and the growing list of proofs that he was a tragic example of Lungbarrow's cheap genetic counseling), he was also cursed with an elevated imagination. This had got him the creative thinking that threw him in (and out of) trouble at the Pryderion Academy with alarming frequency. It also made him a very-much-below-average Time Lord in matters of politics, social skills, and Law (because, of course, there was no higher level of civilization than the fascinatingly deathless pursuit of politics).

Time Lords were dreadfully feline in that they found the closest definition of 'omniscience' was no further than the next mirror. They didn't recognize, encounter, or need imagination. It was a mental appendix, a carryover from their embarrassing but blessedly long-distant origins as more primitive beings. And here the Doctor not only had that unfortunate defect, he had it in large, generous glops. It was one of the reasons why a small but vocal group of activists within the Wall was thoroughly supportive of letting him serve his exile as far away from their delicate, sensitive, civilized planet as possible. Thete was just as supportive of their support of him as they were in this concerted effort to save the Universe all the fuss and muss and just let him go on and do his thing, thank you very much. An active asteroid field with fluctuating gravitational fields plus the occasional rouge pinhole made a better environ than going back Home, where no matter where and when you went, all roads led to the intimidating perfection of The Citadel.

As far as viewsheds went, Gallifrey's proudest image of itself was as good as a giant sign, sculpted across the stars in rare fluorescent gases, saying, GO ELSE, YOUNG MAN. Too many times, the Doctor felt it was also saying SURRENDER, DOCTOR, with all the finesse of an improbably green humanoid on broomstick, laughing despite the Newtonian impossibility of breathing whilst in motion in the upper tropospheres.

The Doctor's knee-jerk reaction to the unpleasantly glowering face was met with the reaction it deserved.

* * *

Hours later, the Valeyard was hot, sweating, and trying to re-evaluate his position from around a palpable wall of rage and frustration.

The time spent had been anything but idle. His quarry had not only ran off like the proverbial demon-dog-chased Lepus, he had ran with exactly as much logic. Instead of simple and straightforward lines of departure that would have given the Valeyard's superior endurance and longer stride the chance to overtake him, the daft little Hobo had taken him backwards, forwards, sideways, diagonally and elaborately through every conceivable (and not so conceivable) nook, cranny and corner of the Marketplace. The Valeyard had dodged the milling throng only to bounce off the vanguard of burly Tavern Escorts on their Union-sponsored and recreational-substance-free breaktime. With bodies large and primitive brains unencumbered by foreign elements, they had encouraged him to run off in short order—which he had been pleased to do as his target was gaining distance.

It was difficult to say the least, to pick out the object of his quest even with his limited psychic tether, but he lucked out and spotted a familiar mop of glossy black hair and an ill-fitting frock coat bobbing back and forth through the public. With a snort the Valeyard added speed to his long legs, his left hand clutching in a way that would have made the little Doctor (had he seen it), think of the giant, grasping Claws of the Macra.

Thankfully, the Doctor didn't see it, or his panic would have exponentially inspired him to try to gain enough ground velocity to take off the terra firma all together.

Long minutes later, the Valeyard was no closer to his prey than ever, and he was reluctantly facing the fact that there were advantages to being a runt. That lower center of gravity was proving a severe disadvantage in keeping up. The little hobo had an undeniable gift for tactical evasions (maybe he had been paying attention to The Great Ereshminithallnstan's Philosophy of Retreat Lectures after all).

Ten minutes later, during which they'd completed the entire circuit of the Inner Marketplace, the Mews, and two public drinking-wells, the Valeyard was starting to lose patience with the little Tramp. That someone could run (and leap, and hop, and skip, dodge, duck and pelt) without tripping over those primitive shoes was a disillusioning moment for the way the Universe should run. He wasted a moment in a snarl, reminded himself that he was physically half the age and twice the strength of his quarry, and dug his heels in the ground.

Prey species were hyper-attuned to the actions of their predators, so it was possible that the Cosmic Hobo caught a thread of the snarl that rattled out of the Valeyard's throat. He literally braked for a fractured nanosecond, spun on his heel, and took off in yet another random direction, this time straight down the middle of the opposing pedestrian lane, which was at this moment clogged with a wedding procession. At least, it looked more like a wedding procession than it did a funeral procession; the waving permits for assembly were almost identical as well as the public's attitude to both occasions.

The Valeyard was by now quite bruised and sore from bouncing against the primitive public. He was also mentally plotting a list of indignities for the Doctor that would still let him get full value of the bounty.

A flash of black and the Doctor dropped out of trajectory to run under the belly of a large, hairy beast with six hooves that was trotting vanguard with two others of its ilk. The Valeyard's two hearts froze as visions of damaged goods, drastically reduced pay, and tiresome explanations flashed before his eyes.

Before the hunter could begin to calculate the time and effort to keep an injured Time Lord locked down and through _another_ regeneration _and_ convince his clients he hadn't had a _thing_ to do with his contract's damages (like anyone who knew this particular Doctor would believe that), the beasts finished trotting on and the Doctor was a dismaying twelve feet in advance, slowing only long enough to take a flying leap across a narrowboat canal. The roof of one of those said narrowboats barely scraped the bottom of his scruffy shoe and he landed with appalling luck on dry land, stabilized, and nipped a sharp left into a murky alleyway. Alien junglefowl squawked and flapped awkwardly out of said alleyway in a featherstorm of brilliant colors before settling in inconvenient places all over the alley—three chose the narrowboats as their new domicile, and as they averaged the size of Terran peafowl, they managed to triple the Valeyard's inconvenience in the hunt.

Proving the Doctor was still nearby, a distant gong of sound that could only be a collision of something large and feathered against something large and coppery floated up. Seconds later a small avalanche of cookware on sale for the Profane Festivals rolled like so many ninepins across the turf and promptly sank into the bottom of the canal.

"Alive and unharmed," The Valeyard thought in disbelief. "What fool thought up that condition?"


	6. Who Are You?

But thoughts were unprofessional. He had a job to do. With a grim set to his jaw, the Valeyard followed the increasingly disastrous trail.

* * *

The Doctor's initial panic had cooled a bit after the first ten minutes or so of his run. That was a relief and he was grateful to put a portion of his mind aside to deal with this very unpleasant problem while he committed to evasive maneuvers. As long as he could stay out of his pursuer's way, he could still think. Not well, granted, but one does what one has to do, and it wasn't the first time he'd had to work out a difficult problem while doing something equally important. It all led to survival.

Thanks to a rather intense cluster of experiences in his young life, the Doctor's personal philosophy of retreat resembled less than the dignified proverbs of the Academy, and more to the basics held hallow by Jubilation T. Cornpone.

As long as he was out of the enemy's reach, he had cause for cautious optimism.

So. He didn't know who this remarkably tenacious person was, but thanks to the psychic undercurrent, he knew this was a Time Lord-and a bad one! That was not good. He avoided his own people for reasons that had only been validated as the years wore on—the Binding Bracelet and Cobra Brand on his right arm were but two of the most immediate and infuriating examples, and that was without blundering into fellow renegades (The Meddling Monk being the most harmless but still potentially dangerous).

He was on assignment for the short-sighted Bureaucrats who'd put said Bracelet and Brand on him, which meant whoever was following him with such...enthusiasm...was an enemy agent that didn't know or care that he was under the CIA's license. That was a bit not good again, or to use one of Zoe's examples, BNG².

The brute was _amazingly_ tenacious. Under normal circumstances, the Doctor could get a swift outcome of a pursuit within just a few minutes—he was either caught or he escaped, and either outcome allowed him to move on to Step B which was usually Plan A through to the value of pi. (Or to make another Zoeism, B=A[a»3.14]). This was the longest he'd avoided either outcome in...well, forever.

Ergo this was no ordinary Time Lord.

What little psychic glimpses he'd obtained through the helter-skelter had been enough. This was a very, _very_ unpleasant mind chasing after him, and every one of his considerable instincts fairly screamed GET AWAY GET AWAY at all cost. Much to his horror, the man had seemed to anticipate everything he was about to do, as if he'd spent a long time studying him just for this purpose! The Doctor wasn't used to this treatment. It wasn't until he'd reverted to complete panic mode and lett his instincts take completely over, dashing about with no plan whatsoever, that he'd started to gain a slim advantage in the race.

He'd always been fleet of foot, but he'd caught a taste of sadism inside that dark mind just before crossing the narrowboat canal and that had given him the incentive to take a literal flying leap of faith across a two-yards-wide rooftop and land on the other side almost in the heart of a Ganeshean Terrace Farm. Thank goodness one of those pesky feather pillows had taken flight into the heart of the costermonger's stall. The city would be fishing for cookware for days but it would increase activity in the city and hopefully make it harder to support a kidnapping attempt in plain sight of the Sacred and Profane Ranks.

Still horrified from the brief taste of that Mind, the Doctor didn't dare stop running, but he did slow down to take better stock of his surroundings. Only the luck of the desperate kept him from running straight into a building or slipping on pressed street-stones or making a door out of a passing Breads Cart.

His two hearts protested the change, but he sternly told himself to grow up and stop complaining.

Panting hard, he struggled to orient himself. Safety was the first prerogative. His TARDIS was a three mile walk down the South Road, and he'd have to get through the Market to reach the Gate! Every instinct was screeching to toss all odds and run to the safety of the timeship, or pull out his precious Stattenheim Control Device, but the other instincts were kicking in at full blast, warning him that if this was a rouge Time Lord, he could know where his TARDIS was, and use it to track him.

For all he knew, this glowering Thug was setting up a trap for himself and his only means off the planet. And just because this was a Time Lord, that didn't mean HE had a TARDIS of his own, oh, no, no, no.

What did Rouges do when they wanted to travel?

They stole a TARDIS.

He'd done the same thing! He'd stay away from the TARDIS for now. He didn't want to risk her theft. It would devastate him, and the CIA wouldn't care. They'd stick him with one of those modern monstrosities, soulless beasts!

"Oh, fiddlesticks." He muttered to himself. This was depressing.

* * *

The Market was long gone. The suns were rising high over the city. He was roughly forty streets southeast from the site of his initial panic. Soon most living beings would seek shelter from the Apex of the triple suns. The Old Beings would be wandering about, enjoying their own personal free time on the shared planet. He wondered if they were still amicable to Time Lords. If so, they might be willing to offer him shelter.

Or, they might assist his Pursuer. The Old Beings were not exactly predictable, and sometimes they chose to be invisible. That made them a little hard to talk with...

The Doctor's energy reserves were running (pun not intended) out. He'd been in much better shape before the disaster of the last mission. Even cranky old Medical Officer Bergenthani had warned Goth he was in questionable health for an extended trip outside the Citadel.

_Or I could admit I'm possibly over my head, and head back..._

Officially, an Agent in the field was forgiven for returning with an unclosed case. That was the actual policy in the records.

Unofficially...

Unofficially there was a certain stripe of Agent that was not forgiven much of anything, and guess which select group was the Doctor's?

The small man huddled in the shelter of the shadows, worrying at a thumbnail and pondering his chances. He wasn't (at least) considered the lowest of the low; that was the honor and right of that degenerate Cientan—worse than the Rani! He shuddered at the memory of their thankfully brief encounters. He didn't like most of his fellow Parolees any better than he did his Keepers-and for the same reasons.

That mind had felt every bit as bad as hers...

Psychotic...self-alienated...completely cold and amoral..._is he another rouge like her?_

Once taken, the thought would not shake. The small Time Lord felt himself pale at the implications. If this was true...He closed his eyes, concentrating, scrolling up his memory of active and "retired" CIA Agents.

The list was dismayingly short. Less than a thousand, and only a fraction of them were Time Lords. He could easily scrap the augmented Shobogans and other Outsiders...

He cross-examined for just the living ones on the records, but nothing seemed to match. Not surprising. The CIA could wipe anyone out of anything if they wanted an agent to go completely underground. Even the Matrix could be tampered (the controls were nauseatingly simplistic and wouldn't keep out a determined Kroton on low power).

What if this thug was an officially dead agent?

The Doctor settled down for a long, long examination in his mind for potential candidates.

_This is just stupid. __If they want an Agent to turn completely ghost, they'll wipe his memory out of every mind in their service—and my mind's patchworked enough!_

Still, one had to try...and he couldn't do much else while he was waiting for a better opportunity to move.

_The Odeon's such a ridiculously simple mission...if I fly back from that babbling about Dark Minds, they could claim I was resisting the terms of parole and resume my Forced Regeneration! _

_Worse, they can roll over the tenants of my punishment into my successor! They'd make this his problem! Oh, that would please Goth to his last hair!  
_

The Doctor did not want to do that. His Third self was a smug buffoon with hair like a dried thistle and the arrogance of a Pryderion Dean (horrors that he'd managed to let go of all that dusty old egotism just to come back to that), but if he wanted his future self to be freer than he was, it was better to lump it all in now, get it over with, and _hope_ his exile would be shortened by that much more.

If he failed, they'd return him to the Time Stream anyway, and he flinched from that thought. The brief meeting of Three had given him a terrible suspicion that the CIA had wiped so much of himself out of his own mind that he was largely forgotten from his own Brain. Indeed, he'd caught a great deal of contempt from his older self, followed by unfeigned surprise when he'd gotten the explanation for provoking Omega.

If his future selves had forgotten what he had endured—and was still enduring—for their sakes, he had best accept that and at least be glad they couldn't remember this humiliating phase of his life. It wasn't as though he could expect them to break the second law of Time and help him!

_I'm on my own with this._

Right now he couldn't even hope for Jamie and Zoe.

He felt very much alone.

A slash of sunslight burst over the narrow streets. The Doctor hastily moved deeper in the nearest shade, which was luckily a living canopy of green vines. The leaves reacted to the thermal uprisings and rustled with a musical tang. The Doctor was momentarily distracted by the soothing vibrations of plant and sound and warm air.

Even as he wondered where to go next (and what to do), the leaves reacted to the sun with greed. They spread outward and upward, unfurling into jigsaw-puzzle shapes, creating a dark shade beneath. The rustling gained melody. The tired Time Lord sank beneath a braided trunk and took a deep breath of a greenscented forest. Outside the canopy, the suns were pounding solar radiation into the stonework. It was time for the Old Ones to emerge.

The Doctor didn't precisely have a plan in mind, but a shred of his resolution had returned. Being unpredictable had been the key to his success in the past. He decided to keep with it. He took a deep breath, sighed, squared his shoulders under his large coat, and traced his steps through the long tunnel of green—far away from the Market.

* * *

The Valeyard was starting to admit that he would have to deviate from his usual norms. Gallifreyan was a fine, civilized language with unmatched intricacies and delicacies and its very alphabet spun lacey concepts without peer.

But every word in Gallifreyan that could apply to his current situation was simply not up to the task. This was yet another annoyance the little Derelict was adding to his ever-growing pile of indignities that would be addressed later. He grumbled to himself through his special field glasses, angry that he'd lost the psychic trail. Even the Artronic Energy that could track a Time Lord had been well and truly blurred—one look through the viewscreen and all he could see was a glimmering blue trail of residual fire from where he and the Doctor had run across every possible known path through the Marketplace. The view from the rooftops was a Gordian Knot of light, impossible to trace because Artronic Energy was too organic to stand apart: it blended, twined and sought itself. Within an hour the trail of energy-knots would coalesce into a smooth lump of glowing blue fog.

_I don't remember having that much energy back then, perhaps that's why he's such a scatterbrain?_ he mused with the cold detachment of a being using memory that had no emotional value. He probed cautiously into the depths of his considerable brain, but the further one went back the...less interesting...the memories went.

A few Doctors were barely even "there" in his mind. The Cricketeer had been an embarrassing waste.

The Third...the Valeyard couldn't think of Exile on ancient Earth without a shudder of revulsion.

And the Second... his surface memories of that life wavered between the unutterably dull (sand castles!) or the exact opposite (up to his neck in trouble because he wouldn't mind his own business). That annoying altruism had first launched into this life—possibly because there hadn't been much opportunity in the first one? It was aggravating to see how many times he'd been offered real power, and hadn't taken it! (Thoughts of the War Chief infuriated him because that plan would have worked with a little help, and the War Chief was intrinsically malleable to a stronger will like his own).

He must have been contaminated by those Buddhist Mystics, the Valeyard concluded with a hapless shrug.

He had to think.

Collecting himself in a quiet corner on the roof-top, he steepled his long fingers together until the tips barely touched.

He had been very careful in studying his quarry. All his other Selves existed in copious written records, files, databases—and not a few songs, mythic poems and (regrettably) at least four major acts of vandalism involving hapless rock cliffs and one solid wall of diamond. There was almost an embarrassment of riches for anyone who wanted to study the Doctor. Even that clever erasure with the Daleks hadn't kept him from finding what he was looking for.

But the Second Model was a bit of a problem. Not only was he hard to find, he had made it hard to find—for someone who could avoid trouble no more than a Rassilon Scout Ship, the little runt had jumped out of trouble as quietly as a ghost. There were plenty of traces of his emerging into History—an invasion here, a base under siege there, a strange plague or natural disaster—you name it. He always showed up at the right place and the right time to commit a grievous violation of the Noninterference Policies, and then instantly nip out of existence as soon as it was over. As in, "as soon" as it was over. Most of the people he'd helped automatically assumed he was dead at the very hands of the threat he'd fought. The Valeyard had some useful memory on his side, but not much—early lives tended to be smoothed over in the press of time by more recent and thus more immediate lives. And of course, the Second Doctor had already been largely erased out of Time long before the Valeyard's creation.

There was also the issue of this Doctor's persona. Second Regenerations were usually...iffy. One had to be amazingly stable and mature to slide from their first Life into their Next without a drastic change in personality; regenerating for the first time, especially without counseling, stereotypically meant a manifestation of all the bits and pieces, oddments and endments and unfinished business left over from the first Life. The regrets, mistakes, and angst, if you were. It happened often enough that the phrase, "Oh, it's just his second time around" encapsulated every known act of stupidity ever witnessed on the floors of the Gallifreyan High Courts.

Just look at the Hobo. He was still the Incurable Visual Aid for that example.

The Collective Memory of this Doctor was strong and vivid up to a point: the Trial over the War Lords. From there the memories mostly jumped from the floor of the Council Chamber and collapsed straight into a bed of vegetation on a primitive, sinking-into-the-sea-and-the-people-live-there-any way island on Earth.

The span of time in which the Second lived as a CIA agent was murky and diaphanous. Whatever he did as said Agent, there was no telling because his mind was routinely wiped from the missions when he was finished.

Being a paranoid sort, the Valeyard had personally investigated this for himself, and found no data to the contrary. So. If they didn't remember being the Second Doctor, at least the blanks had a reason.

At least there were a few basic facts about the Lost Doctor that had survived:

* * *

The Doctor had been wild enough in his youth, but like all the rowdy young Time Lords, he'd settled down and turned into a dried up old stick of respectability—un-utterably dull to the point that even the Master wrote him off as a lost cause and the Rani considered him a visionless lump, his brain fatally clogged with plaque and acid. That he'd turned and fled the planet in a stolen TARDIS in the late years of his _first_ life was...shocking. Scandalous. That sort of thing was typical for the second regeneration, not the first.

As the Valeyard recalled, the Master was _still_ annoyed that he hadn't predicted that outcome.

So. If One had put out some incredible wildness before his first Change, _what exactly had Two become?_

It was quite clear that Two's grudging work with the CIA (and the Master invariably snickered himself out of whatever bad mood he was in at the thought of him under the heel of those mentally constipated vanguards of Choking Propriety), was a tooth and nail battle to the finish.

Two was the Clown among his Selves. Even One had been taken aback at his replacement. Every single Doctor after Two had some sort of Clown in his personality (and sometimes, the Clown had simply taken over; who could forget Four and Seven's perambulations? Best not think of _them_; Everyone had thought Four had been as daft as a Time Lord could get...until Seven had showed up! Great Time and Space, what a handful Seven had been!

Five had appeared relatively free of Two's Disease, until he was offered the Office of President and what did he do but turn right around and run off Gallifrey as fast as his TARDIS could fly—it was a chilling repeat of his first escape, and no one at the Council should have forgotten One's dark vow on the Council Floor:

"_Even if you gave me the Presidency I'd stuff it up the ceiling and take off so fast you'd be spending the next three of your last Regenerations trying to figure out where I was!"_

Forewarned is forearmed, and the Council had no one to blame but themselves for that one. Somewhere in the transposed Time of Twelve's psyche, the scraps of One and Two's personalities were swinging from their heels off the nearest tree-branch, laughing their figurative heads off at Five's retreat.

Eight had been calmer, mercifully. He still kept that childish sense of wonder to everything he saw, and his recurrent amnesia had found support with Two, who couldn't go anywhere without his precious diary tucked into his coat. What he would do without that diary, no one could imagine; his memory depended on it more than half the time (and the Valeyard planned to confiscate it at the first chance in the hopes of gaining an advantage).

Nine had been a sharp-edged, hard-smiling prankster with a smile as untrustworthy as Four's. As the Valeyard recalled, Three had sniffed and called him "U-boat Captain" in concession to his utter lack of personal style, but Nine had not wanted to be noticed. The darkness germinating inside him made him dangerous and slippery. He had not lived long; he had never planned to live long at all, but saw every day of his incarnation as a sort of "parole" from the Time War. Had it not been for Rose, the Darkness would have fed him immeasurably...and the Valeyard would be all the more stronger. It was a bitter fact.

Then Ten and Eleven had showed up! Rassilon! A Time Lord was supposed to _improve_ with age, but somehow those blights had missed that basic lesson! Eleven had been particularly dangerous, and there was something in his soft speech and clumsy charm that was reminding the Valeyard an uncomfortable amount of Two.

Twelve was another one the Valeyard preferred not to think about; he was closest to him after all. Studying him put him in deep danger of actually liking him, and that would never do.

The Second Doctor never once forgot he was a fugitive or what could happen if he was discovered. In his first body he had done his share of travel, but it had been as an observer and tourist, absorbed in history and cusp events more than anything else. With his first regeneration he went (without warning) from a reluctant participant to a full-frontal meddler. It was not the sanest choice in lifestyle to take if one is on the run from the masters of Space and Time. It wasn't even vaguely sensible! And yet there it was—always running, meddling, and running off again. He never stayed in one spot longer than he had to, and he avoided the limelight like grim death.

Which was the only sensible thing that Doctor did. The longer he stayed around, the better his odds of being noticed. If one was to go completely by the captured images of the Time Lord in those years, they were rare, blurry, and taken hastily. He jumped from one disaster to another—sometimes more than one in the same day. It was a little disturbing.

Aha...

The Valeyard's dark eyes lit in triumph. A smile crept over his worn face. _There we have it._

A disaster.

There was one thing that little Hobo couldn't resist...couldn't ignore...couldn't let lie.

His smile had become a grin. He rose to his feet and eyed the city speculatively. Now, how to go about causing a lot of destruction and death in a short period of time...?

* * *

The Doctor was worn out by the time he reached one of his paid rooms. With a little idle chatter to hide his nervousness, he moved to the top floor of his hostel and keyed open the lock to his door. He couldn't sense anything or anyone. Good. He wondered about the rest of his rooms, but hadn't that been the whole reason for renting so many at the same time? Call him suspicious, but if he cared about what people called him he wouldn't still be alive!

Locking the door (and propping the knob with a chair for good measure), he staggered to the private bath and managed a decent job of scrubbing the city off his hands and face. When he finally passed his own inspection he kicked off his shoes and collapsed on top of the bed, closing his eyes for a short rest. Despite his worries about his unknown foe, he was asleep almost instantly.

_I just know we're going to meet again, and soon_, was his last, grim thought before Morpheus.

* * *

The Doctor's prophecy came true about four hours later.

The little man jumped to his feet, shaking from a terrific sound that was sending everyone within his earshot of the building into worried calls and cries for their misplaced loved ones. Still trembling, he staggered to the window and threw open the heavy pane only to find he wasn't the one trembling. The building was. So were the others.

He leaned out the window at dangerous angles, staring wildly, but all he could see was the still-vibrating structures of smooth stone and mortar...and an alarming plume of smoke in the patch of darkness that ought to be the edge of city limits.

_A Crust-cracker Bomb! And on this world! It's almost as old as the Kasterborus System!_ The Doctor leaned back (to the relief of the safety responders), and rubbed at his face, willing his mind to work. He hadn't had the dubious pleasure of a Cracker Bomb in hundreds of years-nice to know he didn't need his predecessor's diary for this one!

On planets as young as Earth, a Cracker Bomb was ameliorated by the youth and tensilty, the elastic nature of the still young rock that sat over the thick mantle.

On a planet as old as this, the rock was all stiff, brittle, and fragile.

Someone had set off an explosion calculated to vibrate a good square fifty miles of the planet's crust-a low charge, obviously, as he and the populace still had working eardrums-

_They did it to cause a fright...Oh, no!_

For a moment, the Doctor thought of his purpose for coming-words for betrayal and violence. He couldn't think of a better appeal to incorporate these words after a sleepless night of attack like this!

_But I have the feeling whoever did this had a different purpose in mind..._

Lips set into an expression of deadly serious the Brigadier would have noted, the Time Lord stepped into his shoes and reached for his tie-pin. He's smoking me out, whoever he is, and he's not afraid to kill, injure or terrify peaceful people to do it.

_Might as well cut to the chase and see what this is all about..._


	7. Fast For a Little Man

The Valeyard was pleased with himself as he watched pandemonium erupt throughout the Luddite City. The destruction wasn't as impressive as he would have liked; nothing like a high body count to bring about attention, but he'd done the best he could with the limited ingredients on hand, and calculated that the incongruity of violence at the Odeon would be enough to bring about the curious nose of the Doctor.

And there he was.

The little figure was threading right through the tangle of rescuers, going straight up to the authoritarians and asking them questions as if he belonged there. And as was so often, they were helping him without really knowing it. The Valeyard smirked to himself, content in the knowledge that the Doctor would be safely occupied for some time.

Ahah...

Aquiver with anticipation, the Valeyard crept forward. He still didn't know how the Doctor recognized him enough to run away on their first meeting, but in the offchance this incarnation had picked up some extra senses, he checked his mental and psychic defenses. There was a good chance he was just flighty, but the Valeyard didn't want to go through another high-speed chase, ever.

The cooler dawn was emerging—perfect timing.

The big man slipped deeper into the shadows as the little Time Lord exchanged words with the harassed-looking rescuers, and abruptly turned his back and took off at a run. The Valeyard gaped in astonishment, for he knew the Doctor couldn't possibly stay away from an aberration like this.

So he waited.

The Valeyard had never been good with waiting. It was another carryover from more than one of his "donors."

Just as he was about to climb out of his cover and follow, the little Hobo returned with a convoy of vendors. With impressive speed they lined up their portable tables and set up their shops upon the pedestrian walkways around the scenes of damage; they were instantly swamped by dirty, weary and hungry people holding up what little currency they happened to have.

"Not to worry, it's all taken care of," A Vendor announced. "All food and drink paid for!"

"Who would do this?"

"Well, he's right here, you can ask him yours—well, he was just right here!" Heads turned from side to side, looking for a certain little do-gooder that was no longer around.

_And so it begins,_ the Valeyard thought. With the people distracted with food and drink, the Doctor now had a golden opportunity to explore the blast site unimpeded. Not a bad strategy. He rose from his corner, stiff with inactivity after all his running, and began the new hunt.

He had to be careful and move as invisibly as possible, but sure enough he soon caught the familiar little form inside what had been the epicenter of the bomb's trajectory. The Valeyard hung back, for even the slightest sound would alert the frightened authorities, and tried to keep track of the Doctor's movements.

* * *

The Doctor was unaware of his presence. He was poking about the rubble, using a Geiger Counter pulled out of his pocket, and taking readings at the keypoints. Several times he looked up to orient from the night sky through the shattered rooftop, his face clouded with troubled thoughts. He pulled out a tiny journal and penciled furiously upon the pages, moving aside to make room for the next line of bodies getting ferried out, single-file, through the blasted walls, but the Valeyard doubted it was for something as plebian and simplistic as an explosives algorithm. _That_ he could do in his head; it was even easier than thermodynamic physics.

So if he wasn't plotting the explosives..?

The Valeyard tabled the question for later; the Doctor was moving again.

He watched from a curtain of moving bodies, cloaked _in_ the ruckus of infinite livelihoods, and the chaos of colors and shapes as the small black-clad figure moved warily past one of the public wells and to the the shadier alleyways.

Taking his time, the Valeyard watched carefully. After the Olympic sprints of the day, it was hardly surprising the little man was moving slowly. He stopped frequently, and purchased a drink here, something small and light there. He ate and drank with his back to the nearest wall, his Lungbarrow eyes gleaming like a small cat's as the light conditions rippled across the sky.

Something prodded the hunter's memory, and he knew absolutely that his target was completely rattled. The Doctor's default mechanism was to pretend all was well no matter how much it wasn't. So. He patted himself on the back smugly, glad to achieve this small victory. It wouldn't take long before the Hobo would move into a spot ripe for removal.

And that had best be soon. The Valeyard was well ready for this job to be completed.

The Doctor paid a last, leery look about the marketplace before returning his cup to the vendor, and threaded back into the main traveler's route to the Odeon. The Valeyard had a feeling the Doctor would drop out of it soon; he wasn't staying in one place or moving in one direction longer than he had to.

Smiling to himself, the big man slipped through the murky shadows of the alleyways. In some places there was just an absence of any and all illumination, and this gloom stretched for dozens of city blocks. He blended beautifully with his dark clothing.

Unfortunately, so did the Doctor, so he'd best anticipate his next path and cut him off before he reached the Odeon.

* * *

In the meantime, the Doctor was wondering if he was going to finish this mission at all. His feelings were getting progressively worse and it wasn't just being in an unfamiliar place, separated from his TARDIS.

It had taken no longer than a few seconds to assess the damage of the buildings as one of calculated menace. The hand with explosions had been intricate and delicate, and thankfully limited by the low-grade materials at hand. It would have taken time to distill the local petrochemicals and nitrites into something much more deadly. Ergo, this was a spur of the moment sabotage.

He had a terrible feeling that the deaths and injuries had been a play staged for his benefit.

"Betrayal, violence, and murder." He said out loud as he paused at the edge of a narrowboat canal. No one paid him a second look. Without a doubt those words would be incorporated into the language at the Odeon tomorrow!

Now what?

If Jamie and Zoe were here, he could at least concentrate on keeping them safe. Having those young people around him had saved his sanity more than once!

There is nothing like being responsible for the lives of people who trust you to stay focused...and cautious! Not that "cautious" was a word anyone would apply to the Doctor—least of all himself—but if he forgot at times to think of others, he absolutely never remembered to think of himself, and his Companions had always been his voices of reason. With their short lives they were better attuned to the value of day to day living, and protested anything that let Time flow too quickly. They incorporated joy into their most everyday actions—even eating. They rested by having fun. They enjoyed the small, frivolous things—even the youngest ones—because they knew when they grew old those tiny moments of joy and indulgence would warm their memories.

Initially, that mindset was difficult for him to absorb; Susan had learned first, and he was just beginning to learn it when he turned into this current body...

A large hand clapped over his shoulder with all the force of a CIA's Secret Guard. The Doctor yelped.

* * *

"GOT YOU!" The Valeyard roared his triumph.

Short-lived though it was.

The Doctor spasmed into an unrealistic contortion of muscle and skeletal frame, spinning himself towards the Valeyard instead of fighting to get away. The Valeyard was shocked enough that he reacted on instinct and reached up with his other hand, grabbing at the nearest shoulder.

It was then that the Valeyard realized the little Hobo wore oversized clothes for a reason.

He watched, gasping for air, unbelieving as the Doctor vanished into the night, his short-sleeved shirt glowing in the dusk. The Valeyard had only gotten his blasted coat. "Oh, that little TRAMP." He just had time to growl, before it dawned on him that the coat was ridiculously heavy. Overbalanced, he stepped backwards. It was just as well the canals weren't very deep. With that coat weighing him down, the Valeyard sank straight to the bottom.

* * *

The Doctor was getting more and more exasperated. _Now_ he was out of funds as well as everything else—and he'd really, _really_ liked the coat (not as much as the Baum model grabbed up in a 'Frisco Flea Market, but close). It had belonged to his First Self after settling some nasty business for William Gillette during his stage production of Sherlock Holmes. It also had his last store of Jelly Babies, not to mention six Lemon Drops, and those were _really_ hard to find since UNIT learned that they (dissolved in ionic distillate), made the cellular walls of Martian Death Seeds burst on contact even better than plain H2O.

It was not a good time to mourn the loss of his treasures. A gurgling roar drowned out the pounding of his two hearts, something like one's imagination might conjure if they were asked to produce an imitation of a cranky hippo sitting on top of a rabid dimetrodon in a juicy mudhole.

Hearts in his throat, the Doctor couldn't resist doing what he knew he'd regret.

He glanced behind him.

A mucked-over and shapeless form staggered out of the canal. There was no sign of a face under the soft silt, but it was a fair guess that rage was its motivating fuel.

The Valeyard spat mud, baring his teeth, and blinked his eyes free just in time to see the Doctor break every single one of his current and admirable records for land travel.

Angry as he was, and he was _infuriated_, the Valeyard wondered if anyone had ever tried to clock the Doctor's speed.

_Probably not. They'd have to get him to slow down long enough for the starting point first!_


End file.
